Chinese Esports Company Xing Jing Wei Wu Group Files for Nasdaq IPO
TapTechNews June 14th news, the son of former Macau's richest man Ho Hung-sun (referred to as the 'Gambling King' by the media), Ho Yu-kwan, who holds a 14.2% stake in the Xing Jing Wei Wu Group (NIPGroup), officially publicly submitted a prospectus to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The listing location for this time is the Nasdaq Stock Exchange in the United States, with the stock code 'NIPG', and Deutsche Bank, CICC, Tiger Brokers, and GF Securities are the underwriters of this IPO.
The Xing Jing Wei Wu Group has not announced the specific offering range and fundraising scale for the time being, but according to the public disclosure on the official website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission at the end of May, the Xing Jing Wei Wu Group plans to issue no more than 26,902,827 common shares. If this listing is successful, the Xing Jing Wei Wu Group will become the first esports company to land on the capital market and will also become the 'first share of Chinese esports'.
TapTechNews learned from publicly available information that the company is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, was established in 2000, and Ho Yu-kwan is the chairman and CEO of the Xing Jing Wei Wu Group, and is also the largest shareholder of the company, with a shareholding ratio of 14.2%. In addition, the company's supporters also include the Hong Kong singer Jackson Yee.
In January 2023, this Swedish esports organization merged through an equity swap with the Chinese company eStarGamingVictoryFive (ESV5 - a joint venture between eStarGaming and VictoryFive), and the new entity was renamed the NIP Group. ESV5 is currently operating under the name of the NIP China division and currently operates teams in 'Honor of Kings' and 'League of Legends', while the Swedish division participates in events such as EA Sports FC 24, 'Counter-Strike 2', 'Rainbow Six: Siege', 'Rocket League', and 'Fortnite'.
The prospectus shows that in 2023, the Xing Jing Wei Wu Group's revenue was 83.7 million US dollars (TapTechNews note: currently about 607 million Chinese yuan), and the net loss attributable to shareholders was 5.72 million US dollars, while the revenue in 2022 was 65.8 million US dollars and the loss was 3.15 million US dollars.
In 2023, the net loss attributable to the Xing Jing Wei Wu Group was 1.33 million US dollars, while in 2022 it was 620,000 US dollars, not including the value increase brought about by the redemption of preferred stocks.
A Frost & Sullivan report shows that the market size of the global esports game industry in 2022 was 57.9 billion US dollars, and it is expected to increase to 102.4 billion US dollars by 2027.