Nexon gets a new CEO, records increased full year profits

Despite attaining large-scale losses in its fourth quarter, free-to-play game company Nexon still managed to achieve improved revenues and profits year-over-year. For the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2013, the company recorded revenues of 34.5 billion yen ($338.0 million), up 12 percent year-over-year, and losses of 4.4 billion yen ($43.6 million), compared to profits of 552 million yen ($5.4 million) year-over-year. Nexon put much of this down to a 2.5 billion yen ($24.5 million) impairment loss related to 6waves Inc, the company which Nexon made a strategic investment in back in 2011. 6waves later laid off all the development staff to focus on game publishing. Regardless, the company still saw notable earnings for the full year, in part thanks to the success of titles like Dungeon&Fighter and FIFA Online 3. The company is still seeing much of its biggest growth in Korea, where fourth quarter revenues were up 65 percent year-over-year. For the full fiscal year, Nexon recorded revenues of 155.3 billion ($1.5 billion), up 43 percent year-over-year, and profits of 30.1 billion yen ($295.4 million), up 7 percent year-over-year.

Change of CEO

The company also took the opportunity to name its new president and CEO. On March 25, 2014, current CEO Seungwoo Choi will step down, and Owen Mahoney will take the reins. Mahoney has been Nexon's CFO since 2010, and has worked in the games industry for around 15 years. The company noted that, under his financial leadership, Nexon has increased its annual revenues by 123 percent, and completed its $1.2 billion IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Nexon's general manager of accounting Shrio Uemura will take over as CFO.