Saudi Arabia's PIF acquires 1.09% stake of Nexon

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Saudi Arabia's PIF acquires 1.09% stake of Nexon

Published: 28 Jun. 2023, 17:21

Nexon Korea's headquarters in Seongnam, Gyeonggi [NEXON]

Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund acquired a 1.09 percent stake in Nexon, a Tokyo-listed gaming publisher founded in Korea, bringing its total holding to 10.23 percent.

The Public Investment Fund (PIF) bought 6.32 million Nexon shares worth 17.6 billion yen ($122 million), according to an electronic disclosure on Monday.

PIF bought an additional 6.32 million shares of Nexon to increase its stake by 1.09 percentage points last Friday, Nexon announced in a filing on Monday. Since last year, the Saudi Arabian fund has invested 266.1 billion yen and now possesses 88.55 million shares of Nexon.

PIF is the fourth-largest shareholder after NXC, the Master Trust Bank of Japan and JPMorgan Chase.

The fund initially disclosed more than a 5 percent stake in the game company in January 2022.

Nexon continues to report profit, recording a record-breaking annual revenue of 3.5 trillion yen last year. In the first quarter, quarterly revenue reached an all-time high of 124 billion yen.

The Saudi Arabian fund is diversifying its investment portfolio to include Esports and games, moving away from its traditional focus on oil and gas.

The Middle Eastern fund is also the second-largest shareholder with a 9.26 percent stake as of March 2022. NCSoft's largest shareholder is its founder Kim Taek-jin.

It also acquired Japanese game company SNK, the developer of the King of Fighters combat video game franchise, in 2020. In 2021, it invested $3 billion in game companies including Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts (EA) and Take-Two Interactive Software.

PIF announced plans last September to invest a total of $38 billion in Esports and game companies through its subsidiary Savvy Games Group by 2030.

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]