The best-performing stock on the Oslo Stock Exchange last year was games company Funcom, which saw its share price rise by 227 percent. Analysts attribute the solid result for investors to high expectations for the company’s pending launch of a new game in the spring.
Funcom is due to launch The Secret World in April, and it’s already won praise from reviewers around the world who got a chance to test the game last fall. “We’ve had very good feedback,” Funcom boss Trond Arne Aas told newspaper Aftenposten.
Aas otherwise didn’t want to speculate much on why Funcom’s stock performed so well in a year that was very tough for most stock-listed companies. The new game, though, will be Funcom’s biggest launch since Age of Conan in 2008. It has sold well and still generates income for Funcom.
The company nonetheless logged a loss through the third quarter last year. “We’re investing heavily in The Secret World now, therefore the loss,” Aas told Aftenposten. “But we’re hoping for major income after the launch in April.”
Only two other Norwegian companies saw they share prices more than triple in 2011, oil company Det norske oljeselskap and offshore firm Golar LNG.
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