Naver's online comics unit eyes Nasdaq listing in June

South Korea’s online portal giant Naver Corp. is planning to list its Los Angeles-based affiliate Webtoon Entertainment Inc. on the Nasdaq this month to boost its digital content intellectual property business on the global stage.

Webtoon Entertainment filed for the US initial public offering on May 31, with lead managers Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan and Evercore. Although the online comics operator didn’t disclose the offering price in the filing, industry insiders put the corporate value somewhere between $3 billion and $4 billion.

“We aim to discover and develop IP that will be the biggest hits over the next decade,” said Naver Webtoon Chief Executive Kim Joon-ku. The company is set to debut on the Nasdaq as early as this month, after the Securities and Exchange Commission's approval and valuation, said an industry official.

Naver controls Webtoon Entertainment with a 71.2% stake. Japan's LY Corp., which operates the popular messenger app Line and internet portal behemoth Yahoo Japan, follows as the second-largest shareholder with 28.7%. Naver said it will maintain enough voting rights to elect board directors of Webtoon Entertainment. 

The US comics platform subsidiary, managing 24 million creators and 170 million monthly active users around the world, posted $1.3 billion in revenue and a $145 million operting loss last year.

Market watchers expect that Korean online comics will establish a strong foothold in the global pop culture industry like in Korean movies, drama series and pop music if Webtoon Entertainment goes public. 

Global IP businesses in webtoons are growing fast as popular digital comics are increasingly used as original sources of drama and games, such as Netflix drama series "Sweet Home" based on the webtoon story of the same title.

The Korean webtoon market has expanded fast since the early 2000s as online platform giant Kakao Corp. and Naver launched digital comics services. Established in June 2004, Naver Webtoon started its global service in English and Chinese and is providing content to around 150 countries in North America, Europe and Asia.

Write to Dong-jin Hwang at radhwang@hankyung.com

Jihyun Kim edited this article.