The founder of Netmarble has bought back a large portion of the corporation's shares from Tencent
The Chinese giant Tencent once acquired many gaming companies, either fully or partially. This is how a piece of Netmarble, a South Korean corporation known for games like Marvel Future Fight, Lineage 2: Revolution, and The Seven Deadly Sins, ended up in its portfolio. Now, the lion's share of this piece has essentially returned to Netmarble itself.
Marvel Future Fight
As noted by the portal Game Meca, Netmarble's founder and head, Bang Jun Hyuk, bought 13.4% of the corporation's shares from Tencent, paying 374 billion won ($270.2 million) for them. Consequently, Tencent's controlled share in Netmarble decreased to just 4.7%.
Through this deal, Jun Hyuk strengthened his position as the largest shareholder of Netmarble. In total, he currently owns 38.34% of the corporation.
Whether Jun Hyuk decided to buy back the shares himself or was approached with such an offer by Tencent remains unclear. It is worth noting that at the beginning of the summer, there were rumors that Tencent wanted to reduce its presence in Japan and sell shares in several local gaming teams, but its plans seemingly did not extend to South Korea.
In any case, Netmarble representatives told the media that the corporation will continue to collaborate with Tencent.