Bluehole, Inc. is a South Korean video game developer company. Founded in Seoul in March 2007, it is known by the titles TERA (2011) and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (2017).
History
Chang Byung-gyu founded Bluehole Studio in Seoul in March 2007. Chang previously founded Neowiz in 1997, with seven other co-founders, and continued on his way to found a search engine in 2005: First Snow, which he sold in 2006.2 On April 22, 2015, the company announced that they had changed their name to only Bluehole.3
In August 2017, the Chinese-born company Tencent announced that it intended to acquire Bluehole, Bluehole initially denied any investment made, but later stated that they were in talks with Tencent to declare a multiple partnership, including the acquisition of a stake in Bluehole. made by Tencent Subsequently, Tencent acquired 1.5% of the shares of Bluehole for a total of ₩ 70. Tencent reaffirmed its intentions to fully acquire Bluehole in November 2017. A Korean magazine The Korea Times suggested that an IPO, through which Bluehole would become a public company, was "out of the question" due to Chang Byung-gyu's position as chairman of both the Bluehole and the Fourth Industrial Revolution committee.At the time, 38 Communications, a company that tracks Korean unlisted stocks, valued the company at Workforce: KRW billion. Tencent plans an investment of more than Workforce: KRW to acquire beyond 10% ownership, raising its total stake to 11.5 % Through the acquisition, Tencent is set to become Bluehole's second-largest single shareholder, following Chang Byung-gyu, Bluehole founder and president, who owns 20.6% of the company.
