NCSoft on Wednesday changed its name to NC at a regular shareholders meeting and reaffirmed three medium- to long-term growth strategies. Shareholders at the meeting continued to question its shareholder return policy, raising issues including a reduced dividend, higher executive pay and the possibility of disposing of treasury shares.

Co-CEO Park Byung-moo (박병무), who chaired the meeting, said in the business report, "We have focused on reshaping our business portfolio and improving our fundamentals for sustainable growth." He added, "We have now entered a phase where the strategies we promised are being realised in tangible results."

Shareholders approved all six agenda items as proposed, including the approval of financial statements and consolidated financial statements, partial amendments to the articles of incorporation, appointment of outside directors, appointment of an outside director to serve as an audit committee member, approval of the ceiling on directors' remuneration, and approval of a plan for holding and disposing of treasury shares.

The company name change and three growth strategies: legacy IP, new IP and mobile casual

The meeting approved an agenda item to change the company name from NCSoft to NC. It is a step to formally conclude brand renewal work that has continued since a corporate identity change in 2020.

Park presented three growth strategies that will be fully activated from this year. The first is to maximise the value of legacy intellectual property. The company plans to lift revenue based on existing IP through entry into Southeast Asia, overseas expansion including China and Russia, and the launch of spin-off games. The company said IP-based revenue grew last year following the releases of Lineage2M and Lineage Classic.

The second is to secure new global IP. It is developing around 10 games in-house, including the disclosed titles "Cinder City" and "Horizon: Steel Frontiers", and is preparing its lineup through 2028 to 2029. For genres it has not previously handled, such as subculture and shooting, it will pursue collaboration with external studios and secure publishing rights in parallel. It also set out a plan to raise quality by introducing a decision-making system based on objective indicators into the development process.

The third is to expand its mobile casual business. It recently acquired a mobile casual game developer and aims to build a revenue structure that is not dependent on the success of individual IP by linking it with NC's data analysis, live-service capabilities and AI technology. It left open the possibility of additional acquisitions.

It also said it will launch an "NC Productivity Innovation Headquarters" at the parent-company level, separate from subsidiary NC AI, to apply AI technology across company-wide work processes.

Shareholder questions focus on lower dividend, executive pay and disposal of treasury shares

During deliberations on the agenda items, shareholders raised questions pointing to the lower dividend and higher executive pay. This year's dividend is 1,150 won per share, down from 1,460 won a year earlier. One shareholder said CEO Kim Taek-jin's pay rose 48 percent and Senior Vice President Lee Sung-gu received 2.5 billion won including a 1.2 billion won bonus, and asked why the dividend fell while executive pay increased when operating profit was only 16.1 billion won.

Chief Operating Officer Koo Hyun-beom (구현범) explained the executive pay structure, saying it includes DPI rewards for the large-scale success of specific IP, paid out in installments over multiple years, in addition to short- and long-term performance compensation. He added that in the case of Lee, not only the success of Aion2 but also the high contribution of legacy IP led to short-term performance being reflected at once. He said the DPI rewards for co-CEO Kim are expected to end soon.

Koo also said the allocation of treasury shares to employees is aimed at frontline staff, not executives, to motivate employees who faced difficulties during restructuring that reduced executives and head office personnel. Park added that the treasury shares being used were not shares the company voluntarily bought back, but shares acquired when dissenting shareholders exercised appraisal rights during a business split.

There were also opposing views over an agenda item on partial amendments to the articles of incorporation that would add a clause establishing grounds for "holding and disposing" of treasury shares. One shareholder pointed to a precedent in 2015, saying the share price fell in about three months from 250,000 won to the 180,000 won range after treasury shares were sold to Netmarble during a management control dispute, and said the agenda item could be used as a means of defending management control.

Park said that under revised commercial law, disposing of treasury shares requires a board decision followed by a shareholders meeting resolution, and that even with the clause, the board cannot dispose of them at will. He said if a specific disposal plan is not approved at a shareholders meeting by the regular shareholders meeting in 2027, the shares will be automatically cancelled under commercial law. He added that if there are no particular plans until next year, he expects almost all of them will be cancelled.

On the use of treasury shares for employee compensation, one shareholder said it was hard to accept from the perspective of shareholder value if the shares are used only for employee compensation without shareholder returns, and asked about plans for additional buybacks. Park said there is currently no plan to buy back shares, but the company could review it if it judges buybacks to be more effective as part of future shareholder return plans. He added that treasury shares excluded from employee allocation are also likely to be cancelled.

Aion2 in-app payment ratio at 80 percent; Lineage IP users maintained above 1.5 million

Toward the end of the meeting, shareholders asked questions about concerns over a decline in the number of Lineage IP users. Park said the combined number of actual users across seven Lineage IP titles is maintained above 1.5 million and revenue is not falling.

Koo disclosed that Aion2's in-app payment ratio is 80 percent. He said that given major mobile games typically have an in-app payment ratio of 20 to 40 percent, it is contributing significantly to improved profitability. He added that the share of in-app payments is expected to continue expanding this year.

NC said it has maintained a policy since 2014 of paying cash dividends equivalent to 30 percent of consolidated net income each year. This year, it calculated dividend resources as 30 percent of funds excluding non-recurring profit and loss from the sale of a building in Samseong-dong, with total dividends of about 22.3 billion won. The company said it maintained its existing dividend principle, but at the meeting shareholders focused more on the actual dividend amount, executive pay and priorities for using treasury shares than on the payout ratio itself.