NCsoft selling all NC Interactive shares, opening new US subsidiary for Western transactions

Guild Wars publisher NCsoft is planning to sell its shares of the company's North American online games branch in order to establish a new Western subsidiary, reports Reuters.

According to Reuters, NCsoft announced it will sell all 809 million shares in NC Interactive, the NCsoft US subsidiary behind MMORPGs Lineage 2 and City of Heroes. NCsoft will sell the shares on Dec. 24 for 78,348,368,000 South Korean wons, about US $72,926,269.

NCsoft will also set up a new and wholly-owned subsidiary in the US specifically to handle interactions with Europe and North America. The new studio is to be capitalized at 50.5 billion wons, or about US $47,005,147, and the settlement is also scheduled for Dec. 24.

"As part of NCsoft's ongoing efforts to become a stronger global company, we are making adjustments to ensure that our western teams and games are more independent and more agile," a representative for the company told Polygon. "These efforts have no effect on NCsoft, ArenaNet or Carbine employees, nor will they have any effect on current titles or those in development."

City of Heroes and its developer Paragon Studios were shut down in August this year as part of a "realignment of company focus and publishing support" by NCsoft.