S.Korea's Netmarble, China's Tencent to bid for Nexon holding company -report (updated)

Netmarble

07/02/2019 11:24

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    SEOUL, Feb 7 (Reuters) - South Korean gaming firm Netmarble
Corp  251270.KS  is partnering with Chinese tech giant Tencent
Holdings  0700.HK  to bid for the company that controls South
Korea's Nexon  3659.T , the Korea Economic Daily newspaper
reported on Thursday. 
    Another member of the consortium will be South Korean local
private equity fund MBK Partners, the report said. 
    Kim Jung-ju, founder of Nexon, the country's biggest gaming
company, plans to sell a 98.64 percent stake in NXC Corp held by
himself and related parties including his wife, the newspaper
reported last month.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N1Z302N
    Netmarble said in late January that it will form a
consortium to bid for Nexon.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N1ZV1PA
    Tencent, the world's largest gaming company by revenue, owns
the exclusive licence to operate Nexon's Dungeon & Fighter in
China. 
    Netmarble declined to comment on whether it is pairing with
Tencent for a bid. 
    MBK Partners and Tencent did not immediately respond to a
request for comment outside regular business hours. 
    Tencent has a 17.66 percent stake in Netmarble. 

 (Reporting by Heekyong Yang; Additional reporting by Jane
Chung; Editing by Jan Harvey and David Evans)
 ((Heekyong.Yang@thomsonreuters.com; +82 2 3704 5647; Reuters
Messaging: heekyong.yang.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))