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Logos of BlackRock and NCSoft |
US investment house BlackRock Fund Advisors has offloaded its 1.01 percent stake in South Korea’s game software developer NCSoft to cash out 129.57 billion won ($105.1 million), a filing showed Thursday.
As a result, BlackRock Fund Advisors and its 13 specially related parties hold 6.05 percent voting rights in the company as of March 25 as a nonengagement shareholder. NCsoft share price rose 6.15 percent.
The investor said its transactions from September to March were “meant to secure the return on its investment” in the filing.
BlackRock Fund Advisors will remain the fourth-largest shareholder of the game developer, known for the Lineage franchise. Other shareholders include Chairman Kim Taek-jin, National Pension Service and Netmarble.
NCSoft’s net profit fell nearly 30 percent in 2019 to 307.49 billion won.
This comes a few days after the investment firm disclosed on Monday that it sold a 1.03 percent stake in Doosan Infracore to secure 8.64 billion won cash.
BlackRock Fund Advisors is an indirect subsidiary of BlackRock, the world’s largest investment management firm with $7.4 trillion assets under management as of end-2019.
Saying the coronavirus pandemic’s financial market impact is one “never experienced” in a lifetime, BlackRock CEO Laurence Fink called on shareholders to “stay focused on long-term returns” in an open letter Sunday.
By Son Ji-hyoung (
consnow@heraldcorp.com)
