SEOUL – South Korean gaming company Shift Up, backed by China’s Tencent, is set to price its initial public offering at the top end of its price band and raise 435 billion won ($313 million), according to a source with knowledge of the matter.
Books close this week and pricing is expected to be finalised on Monday, said the source, who declined to be identified because the information was confidential.
Shift Up said nothing had been decided on pricing yet, with it to be determined after the bookbuilding process ended.
If finalised, the pricing would give the game developer a market capitalisation of 3.5 trillion won ($2.52 billion).
Tencent is Shift Up’s second-largest shareholder with a 40% stake, which is expected to shrink to about 35% after the public offering, analysts said. The largest shareholder is founder and CEO Kim Hyung-tae.
Tencent did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Shift Up, which debuted its first game “Destiny Child” in 2016, succeeded with mobile game “Goddess of Victory: Nikke” which has booked 255 billion won in sales between its global launch in late 2022 and the first quarter of 2024.
Its latest title “Stellar Blade” released on PlayStation 5 in April with an exclusive publishing deal with Sony, hit No. 1 in Japan’s PlayStation download rankings and No. 2 in North America, analysts said.
Shift Up reported an operating profit of 111 billion won in 2023 out of 169 billion won in revenue. This compares with a 18 billion won operating profit in 2022, according to a company filing.
It is expected to list sometime in July.
It follows South Korea-originating online comics platform Webtoon Entertainment pricing its U.S. IPO at the top of its indicated range on Wednesday, as it sought to raise about $315 million.
($1 = 1,389.8100 won)
(Reporting by Scott Murdoch in Sydney and Joyce Lee in Seoul; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Lincoln Feast and Jamie Freed)
