PUBG creator Kim Chang-han is planning an IPO (Initial Public Offering) that is expected to raise up to $27.2 billion.
Kim has been described as a computer genius, winning national coding competitions in South Korea in the 1980s. Specifically, at the age of 10, he won a personal computer competition organized by the South Korean Ministry of Science, and went on to win several other national coding awards.
In 2009, he co-founded Ginno Games, while also participating in two other startups.
However, in 2014, Kim reached the lowest point of his success. Specifically, he laid off a third of the employees working at gaming startup. In addition, since 2000, he created three multiplayer online games in three startups, all of which ultimately failed. Kim said that this was the worst period of his life.
A year later, he sold his company to what is now Krafton Inc., which he joined as executive producer. That's when Kim's fortunes began to change. As a last-ditch attempt at business, he decided to develop an online battle game, where players compete against each other on an ever-shrinking battlefield.
Additionally, Kim convinced Irishman Brendan Greene to join the company and move to South Korea as the game's creative director.
Bluehole Inc., as Krafton was called at the time, released PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, (or PUBG) in 2017. PUBG is one of the most successful games of all time, with the PC and console versions selling more than 70 million copies, while the mobile version has been downloaded over 600 million times .
Now the company is planning an IPO that could be South Korea’s largest in years. The share sale could raise billions of dollars, Kim, who became Krafton’s chief executive last year, said in an interview in Seoul, declining to give further details.
The IPO could value the company at 30 trillion won ($27.2 billion), according to a report by Eugene Investment & Securities Co. released on Jan. 5.
South Korea is set to raise up to $10.9 billion (a record) through more than 120 IPOs this year. KakaoBank Corp. and LG Chem Ltd. are expected to hold initial share sales in 2021, the report said. The surge in IPOs comes after South Korea’s benchmark index gained 34 percent over the past 12 months, one of the best performers in the world.
The country's largest IPO was Samsung Life Insurance Co.'s $4.3 billion offering in 2010. It was followed by the $2.4 billion listing of Netmarble Corp., a Seoul-based gaming company, in 2017.
Krafton operates four game studios, with PUBG accounting for the vast majority of its sales and profits, according to Kim.
Kim also said the company is currently working on an animated show that will be released on streaming services and a web cartoon. The company is open to acquisitions in these areas, Kim said.
Krafton founder Chang Byung-gyu is the largest shareholder with a 17% stake, followed by Tencent Holdings Ltd., which owns 16%. Kim has a 1.5% stake.
Kim is determined to expand the company's game repertoire. So, the company plans to release a new Battle Royale Mobile title this year based on PUBG, another PUBG-related PC and console game by next year, and a survival horror game in 2022 that will depict the PUBG universe three centuries in the future.
