Tencent is reportedly weighing Nexon takeover

Tencent has put out feelers regarding a potential acquisition of South Korean developer Nexon, a report from Bloomberg suggests. According to the article, the Chinese company has already reached out to the family of Kim Jung-ju, who founded Nexon in 1994 and left his shares to his wife and daughters following his death in 2022. 

Though the family doesn’t own an outright majority of the company, it is by far Nexon’s largest shareholder.

Kim’s family transferred some shares in Nexon’s holding company to the Korean government to settle the inheritance tax bill, which might complicate any upcoming transaction — although the government is apparently looking for a buyer of these shares anyway, according to local media reports cited by Bloomberg.

Tencent already weighed an acquisition of Nexon in 2019, but no deal was reached at the time. None of the companies wanted to comment on the report, Bloomberg said, and its own sources confirmed that no deal has taken shape yet.

The Chinese company recently invested in Ubisoft during the French publisher’s restructuring and either fully owns or possesses large stakes in numerous other gaming companies around the world.

Nexon recently emerged as the favorite to develop a new game under the StarCraft IP following a competitive bidding process against other South Korean developers.

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