According to Worlds In Motion, the CFO of The9, distributor of World of Warcraft in China, has recently announced her resignation in order to pursue other interests. Hannah Lee, The9 vice president and CFO, has worked with The9 for over four years and will be stepping down at the end of February. The resignation comes at a curious time as the Shanghai-based company outperformed expectations in the last quarter of 2007. The announcement dealt a crit to the company's shares, which subsequently fell over 8.75% on the Nasdaq.

The9 is China's biggest online gaming operator -- naturally with the license for WoW -- and also develops as well as distributes games in the region. Among its licenses are familiar titles such as Guild Wars and Hellgate: London, as well as titles more popular in Asia such as the control-three-characters-at-once Granado Espada, Ragnarok Online 2, and others. The company's CEO had this to say, "Hannah has been with us since before The9 went public in 2004. Over the years, she has played a vital role in transforming our company into a highly regarded US- listed public company with substantially improved financial reporting and internal control systems. We want to thank Hannah for her many contributions to The9 and wish her all the best in her future endeavors."

The company has announced a search for a replacement and expect to make an appoinment before the end of February. Let's hope that The9 stays in good shape despite the departure of the key person responsible for crunching their numbers! Otherwise, we might no longer see silly news stations using maps of the Arathi Highlands!

Tags: Blizzard, China, The9, WoW China

Filed under: Blizzard, News items, Analysis / Opinion