Late last week, Chinese online gaming giant Shanda Interactive Entertainment announced that they will be spinning off their gaming division, now to be known as Shanda Games Ltd., and will be seeking a new NASDAQ IPO. The parent company is currently trading under the symbol SNDA, and Shanda Games is expected to trade under the symbol GAME.
Like many of their Chinese competition, Shanda operates a number of freemium/item sales (microtransaction based) titles, along with pay-to-play time based games. Amongst the Shanda stables of games, they operate NCSoft’s Aion: The Tower of Eternity, the company’s top money maker. This pay-to-play, time based title is singularly responsible for Shanda’s record breaking revenue highs in 2009. With 8.6 million paying accounts, Shanda operates eighteen MMORPG’s and eleven casual games, with another sixteen MMO’s and eight casual’s in development, the firm shows no signs of slowing their rapid growth.
95 percent of Shanda’s revenues are generated by their gaming unit, thereby making Shanda Games, technically the subsidiary, a much larger organization than the (technically) parent company. Outside of games, the company is also working in the e-book publishing and distribution service, as well as a digital music service. This move harkens to Shanda’s competitor Sohu’s spin off of their gaming unit Changyou, which garnered a $146 million NASDAQ IPO earlier this year.
Now in the hands of the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), with underwriting provided by Goldman Sachs Asia and JP Morgan Securities. Shanda Games is looking to raise as much as $800 million in this IPO. The IPO follows a record quarter of growth, with Q2 revenues up 48 percent year-over-year to $181 million.
Tags: aion, Asia, casual games, Changyou, goldman sachs, jp morgan securities, microtransaction, MMORPG, NCSoft, Shanda
