GRVY
GRAVITY Co., Ltd.
stock NASDAQ ADR

I think that is a fair evaluation concern and a point well taken. Interestingly this past week SON Financial (the activist investor) agreed to sell out to Sony Music Japan with the deal to close Dec 30th. Sony Music Japan will become the largest shareholder owning over 23% of GungHo. It will be interesting to see what may change in the future for GRVY, if anything.

For anyone following, GRVY is 59% owned by GungHo (Japan Public Company).
I'm not sure why GungHo hasn't made a tender offer to minority shareholders. It's been a little while since I dug into GungHo's financials but I recall them also having large cash positions.
Interestingly, I own another stock which is also South Korean and in a parent merger situation (DDI). It is a similar stock in a way, but different mobile revenue source and geographic service area. In DDI's case, the stock was trading at $8.75 per ADS, the parent DoubleU Games (who owns 67% of DDI) made an offer for $11.25 per ADS share.

95% of Shareholders have to approve for the sale to take place - which is an obstacle for total control. But I agree with you, it seems logical for GungHo to at least offer voluntary buybacks given the large cash reserves and share price close to book value.

The bug issue with GRVY is, why didn't Gung-Ho try and squeeze minority shareholders out, perhaps pay a 20-30% premium on every dollar (plus future profits), rather than choose to trickle out a low dividend and lose 40 cents on the dollar to minority shareholders? I'm sure their activist investor made the same suggestion alread, so why did they go this route? It makes no sense from their perspective based on publicly available information.

I'd recommend always looking in-depth at each individual company - to really see what makes up each company's book value.
Having said that, I personally own GRVY.
My analysis for GRVY was:
Pros:
1) The company current assets minus liabilities is 88294 KRW/share ($65.58 US).
2) The company earned 7733 KRW/share ($5.74) in first half of year.
3) They paid their first dividend 4400 KRW/share ($3.27)
4) The KRW/USD exchange rate has been moving to help my USD returns.
5) Stock dilution has been non-existent
6) Well known IP video game in Asia
Cons:
1) Korean stocks have a stigma of hoarding cash and low P/E
2) It is mostly mobile phone gaming, so revenue is never a guarantee
However, if this company was US based, earning $7 - 14 EPS annually (adjusting past KRW earnings to USD today values), the company would be worth a lot. Add on the fact, GRVY has almost the share price in cash today and adding quarterly - it seemed like a no brainer.

I did analyze the "premium" of my modified asset balance vs stock price and it used to be in 2022 - 64.5%, but has fallen to like 6.9% premium as of 2025. Currently it is at 10.5% premium.

I think that is a fair evaluation concern and a point well taken. Interestingly this past week SON Financial (the activist investor) agreed to sell out to Sony Music Japan with the deal to close Dec 30th. Sony Music Japan will become the largest shareholder owning over 23% of GungHo. It will be interesting to see what may change in the future for GRVY, if anything.

For anyone following, GRVY is 59% owned by GungHo (Japan Public Company).
I'm not sure why GungHo hasn't made a tender offer to minority shareholders. It's been a little while since I dug into GungHo's financials but I recall them also having large cash positions.
Interestingly, I own another stock which is also South Korean and in a parent merger situation (DDI). It is a similar stock in a way, but different mobile revenue source and geographic service area. In DDI's case, the stock was trading at $8.75 per ADS, the parent DoubleU Games (who owns 67% of DDI) made an offer for $11.25 per ADS share.

95% of Shareholders have to approve for the sale to take place - which is an obstacle for total control. But I agree with you, it seems logical for GungHo to at least offer voluntary buybacks given the large cash reserves and share price close to book value.

The bug issue with GRVY is, why didn't Gung-Ho try and squeeze minority shareholders out, perhaps pay a 20-30% premium on every dollar (plus future profits), rather than choose to trickle out a low dividend and lose 40 cents on the dollar to minority shareholders? I'm sure their activist investor made the same suggestion alread, so why did they go this route? It makes no sense from their perspective based on publicly available information.

I'd recommend always looking in-depth at each individual company - to really see what makes up each company's book value.
Having said that, I personally own GRVY.
My analysis for GRVY was:
Pros:
1) The company current assets minus liabilities is 88294 KRW/share ($65.58 US).
2) The company earned 7733 KRW/share ($5.74) in first half of year.
3) They paid their first dividend 4400 KRW/share ($3.27)
4) The KRW/USD exchange rate has been moving to help my USD returns.
5) Stock dilution has been non-existent
6) Well known IP video game in Asia
Cons:
1) Korean stocks have a stigma of hoarding cash and low P/E
2) It is mostly mobile phone gaming, so revenue is never a guarantee
However, if this company was US based, earning $7 - 14 EPS annually (adjusting past KRW earnings to USD today values), the company would be worth a lot. Add on the fact, GRVY has almost the share price in cash today and adding quarterly - it seemed like a no brainer.

I did analyze the "premium" of my modified asset balance vs stock price and it used to be in 2022 - 64.5%, but has fallen to like 6.9% premium as of 2025. Currently it is at 10.5% premium.