South Korea’s internet giant Naver Corp. will reorganize the webtoon business by elevating its U.S.-based Webtoon Entertainment Inc. to global head office to accelerate outreach to English speaking readers.

For the reshuffle, Webtoon Entertainment acquires the entire stake in Line Digital Frontier, the Japanese web comics unit under Naver’s Japan-focused messenger operator Line Corp., and then issues 70,072,733 in new shares to Line at 3,313 won apiece, Naver said in a regulatory filing on Thursday.

It will cost the U.S. company an estimated 232.2 billion won ($187.6 million).

The reorganization would make Webtoon Entertainment oversee entire web cartoon business of Naver to take Korean contents to more countries in Europe and South America. Naver expects webtoons to ride on K-wave fever.

Monthly active users on Naver’s webtoon platform Naver Webtoon in the U.S. topped 10 million in November last year, surging from 4 million in the second half of 2018.

Adventure story “Tower of God,” a television series based on a Korean web comic of the same title created by SIU, ranked ninth among the top trending topics on Twitter and stayed at the peak of weekly anime ranking on the U.S. Reddit website since the launch.

Naver shares on Friday fell 6.03 percent to close at 226,000 won in Seoul.

By Hong Sung-yong and Lee Ha-yeon

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]