GRAVITY CO LTD SPONSORED ADR (GRVY)

[riskanalyst]

An interesting tidbit. It's majority shareholder is GungHo Online Entertainment, who is 43.1% owned by Softbank, a major internet player in Japan. Softbank actually mentions Ragnarok in their annual report. Softbank also owns 45.5% of the Online Game Revolution Fund, of which GRVY is a 16% owner. Softbank gives GRVY a huge distribution channel, should one of the new games proves to be a true hit. This also gives them a takeout candidate possibility in GungHo, since they already own a large stake. In fact GungHo previously bought a minority owners stake of approx. 7% back in June 2008 to up their ownership stake to 59.3%. The one issue I have is that as a majority owner and licensor of the games, they pressure GRVY to give them better terms, which would hurt their investment and potentially makes it less expensive to takeover if they have a verifiable hit on their hands. Just nitpicking, but have to throw it out there.