Nexon IPO raises more than $1 billion

Nexon’s initial public offering has raised $1.2 billion on the Tokyo Stock Exchange from initial share sales.

However the IPO, the largest to hit Japan’s stock exchange this year, saw shares fall at the end of trading on the first day, dropping 2.3 per cent below premarket offering price.

Before going public, it was believed the listing could give the South Korean company a market value of between $7.69 billion and $9 billion.

This would make the free-to-play company worth more than publishing giants Electronic Arts, currently valued at $7 billion.

The company has met its ambitions to raise $1.2 billion from the public offering, which Nexon CFO Owen Mahoney told Bloomberg would likely go toward further acquisitions.

“We want to have currency and cash on hand to be able to move aggressively if and when opportunities come up,” he said.

“We like to buy teams and properties early in their life.”

The studio, which publishes free-to-play games MapleStory and Dungeon Fighter, claimed in its IPO filing that it has eight games that have generated over $100 million in lifetime revenues.

It also said that three of those had garnered more than $300 million in revenue, whilst another had made more than $400 million. It also said that two games combined had lifetime revenues of over $1.5 billion.

The online firm has 57 games in 104 countries, and has released other titles such as Combat Arms and KartRider, the latter of which has more than 270 million registered users.