Naver's webtoon unit to raise $315 mn via Nasdaq IPO

Webtoon Entertainment Inc., South Korean tech giant Naver Corp.'s online comics platform, said on Thursday that it will raise $315 million by issuing 150 million shares via its US initial public offering.

The Los Angeles-based company, which oversees Naver’s Korean and global webtoon business, has set its share price at $21 apiece, the upper limit of the indicated range. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Evercore and Deutsche Bank are among the lead underwriters.

Valued at around $2.7 billion via the IPO, the company’s shares will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker WBTN from June 27.

Webtoon Entertainment is expected to boost its intellectual property-related businesses in North America. By securing IPs from original digital novels and comics, the company will accelerate its film production business.

Established in 2005 by Naver’s former search engineer Kim Jun-koo, Webtoon Entertainment is the parent company of Seoul-based Naver Webtoon Ltd., one of the world’s largest online comics platforms.

Webtoon Entertainment’s other subsidiaries include LINE Digital Frontier Corp. in Japan and Wattpad in Canada, a digital comics and novel platform.

Write to Seok-Cheol Choi at dolsoi@hankyung.com

Jihyun Kim edited this article.