Father Xmas, I think you've implied that unless they have some huge expenses...like the new HQ they are building in a very pricy section of Seoul...plus a downturn in actual money being taken in, even the stock price dropping into the basement won't wreck the company because they supposedly have some big cash reserves they haven't spent.
The only thing I am interested in is how to get them to turn loose of the IP.
The company is in no danger of collapse at all. The stock price dropping is analogous to property values dropping - it means nothing to the value of the property for use (i..e. the operation of the company), only for sale or borrowing against it. As long as NCsoft doesn't need to raise capital the stock value is meaningless to them. They're flush with cash, expecting another big inflow in Q3 2013 from B&S release in China, and the millions they're spending on buildings and baseball teams isn't even putting a minor hitch in their stride. The building may well be a good investment rather than a liability (even the baseball team could be a good long-term investment). Sorry, but the company's finances are thoroughly sound.
As for the leadership getting forced out... that's also not going to happen. To do that you first need to get a seat on the board, then you need to talk the majority of the board around to ousting Kim. Getting on the board isn't easy. You'd pretty much have to buy out Nexon or TPG to do it. In any case, it would cost somewhere around $200M to get your hands on enough stock to force your way onto the board. And if you did go after Nexon's stock, for example, you'd find they're run by one of Kim's closest friends and that he'd get a better deal and first chance at the stock. But let's say you replace Byung-moo Park on the board. That still leaves you trying to talk two out of three of Kim's close friends and associates into stabbing him in the back (there are five board members, so you need your own vote plus two others). I doubt there's one chance in a billion of getting COO Hee-sang Lee to do that. Meaning you have to get both Myung Oh and Yun-seok Seo to side with you. They're both close to Kim and particularly his wife Yoon. I've said it before and I'll say it again... NCsoft is not some old megacorp being run by a group of detached investor proxies, it's a young company being run by the founders and a very close-knit group of socially connected individuals. There's just no crack for a hostile takeover effort to pry open. Kim isn't going anywhere until he feels like it.
The only realistic hope I see is that the new Western subsidiary gets independence, ownership of CoH, a strong leader and a marketing firm that thinks selling or reviving CoH would be good PR. I really don't see any Hollywood ending for CoH unless it is driven almost entirely by PR considerations.
[Edit:] I still like to see their stock plummet, since NCsoft and Kim each own about 10% of the shares. The recent drops have cost that duo twice what the new baseball team did.
