Earlier this month we reported on Odin: Valhalla Rising developer Lionheart Studio’s plans to list its IPO on the Korean KOSDAQ stock exchange, which happened to be reason for the company to outline a list of various MMO projects it has cooking. Consider this headline an addendum to the IPO listing portion of that story, as Lionheart has decided to reel back its listing plans because of some interesting market-related reasons.
The decision reportedly stems from two different factors: studio market value and the market’s overall exhaustion of publisher Kakao Games’ glut of IPOs. Lionheart apparently hoped its market cap would be valued at a minimum of 3 trillion Korean won (about $2.1 billion USD) with its initial price, but market sentiment found that valuation to be “excessive.”
Additionally, investors reportedly reacted poorly to yet another Kakao-owned IPO heading to the market, as concerns were raised that the addition of another Kakao subsidiary would harm the gains of Kakao stockholders; for context, Kakao holds a 54% stake in Lionheart.
Obviously, this doesn’t have any bearing on any of the games Lionheart listed as in production, but it is an interesting little asterisk to the whole wider story.
