Ninjas in Pyjamas owner NIP Group regains its Nasdaq compliance

"The matter is now closed." With that sentence, NIP Group Inc., the Nasdaq-listed parent company of Ninjas in Pyjamas, ended on July 24, 2026 a procedure that had hung over its stock market listing for four months. In a press release issued from Abu Dhabi, the company said Nasdaq had notified it in writing on July 21 that it once again met the exchange's minimum bid price requirement.

The requirement is simple to state: a share listed on Nasdaq must not trade below US$1.00 for long. NIP Group's had. On March 24 the exchange sent the company a deficiency letter and gave it until September 21 to bring the price back. The confirmation came 62 days before that date.

The release is short and gives no figure other than the dates and the threshold. What stands behind it is a listed esports group whose 2025 accounts showed a large loss, and a technical change to its listed shares that took effect earlier in July.

NIP Group Inc. press release of July 24, 2026. The 62 days run from Nasdaq's notice of July 21 to the deadline.

What Nasdaq told the company

NIP Group does not list its ordinary shares on the exchange. It lists American depositary shares, or ADSs: certificates issued by a bank in the United States, each standing for a set number of shares of a foreign company. They trade on Nasdaq under the symbol NIPG.

According to the release, the closing bid price of those ADSs was at or above US$1.00 for 10 consecutive business days, from July 7 to July 21, 2026. The bid price is the highest price a buyer is offering; the closing bid is that price at the end of a trading day. On July 21, Nasdaq's Listing Qualifications Department, the office that checks whether listed companies still meet the exchange's standards, confirmed in writing that the company had regained compliance with Listing Rule 5450(a)(1), the rule that sets the minimum bid.

The release mentions no condition attached to the confirmation and no further step.

How the US$1 rule works

The two releases NIP Group published on the subject, on March 27 and on July 24, lay out the mechanism between them.

A deficiency exists once the closing bid has stayed under US$1.00 for 30 consecutive business days, under the text of Nasdaq's Listing Rule 5810. In NIP Group's case the letter of March 24 counted 32. The company then has 180 calendar days to cure it, a period granted by Rule 5810(c)(3)(A), which for a letter dated March 24 ran through September 21, 2026. The cure is the test the company has now passed: a closing bid of at least US$1.00 for a minimum of 10 consecutive business days.

A deficiency letter is a warning and not a sanction. The March release said it had no current effect on the listing or the trading of the ADSs, and that the company's business was not affected. It added that, had the deadline passed without a cure, the company might have been eligible for additional time, subject to the decision of Nasdaq's staff.

The ratio change of July 6

The release of July 24 does not say how the price came back above the threshold. The company's own announcements of the preceding weeks describe a change that was set to take effect the day before the ten-day count began.

On June 15, NIP Group announced a plan to change the ratio of its ADSs. Until then, one ADS represented two Class A ordinary shares. After the change, one ADS represents sixty. For holders, the company said, the effect is that of a one-for-thirty reverse split of the ADSs: every 30 existing ADSs were to be exchanged automatically for one new ADS by the depositary bank, Citibank, with no action required from holders whose ADSs are held through the usual registration systems. A second release, dated July 1, set the effective date at July 6, 2026.

Nothing changes underneath. No Class A ordinary share is issued or cancelled, the company said in June, and the ADSs keep the same symbol. No fractions of an ADS are issued: the bank sells the leftover entitlements together and passes the net proceeds to the holders concerned. The deposit agreement that governs the ADSs dates from July 25, 2024.

The June release did not present the change as a response to the Nasdaq letter, and it gave no reason for it. The March release had said only that the company would take all reasonable measures to regain compliance.

The accounts behind the share price

The letter of March came before the group's annual accounts; the figures for 2025 followed in May. Sheep Esports reported on May 22 that NIP Group's revenue for the year was US$126.5 million, up 48%, and that its net loss was US$238.1 million.

Three charges account for most of that loss, by the figures Sheep Esports lists: an impairment of goodwill of US$122.5 million, an impairment of intangible assets of US$64.4 million tied to the NIP brand name and to league-related rights, and share-based compensation of US$36.7 million. An impairment is a write-down: the company records that an asset is worth less than the value carried in its books. Goodwill is the part of a purchase price that exceeded the assets acquired. Together the three charges come to US$223.6 million.

The balance sheet shrank with them. Total assets went from US$312.6 million to US$202.4 million, equity fell by US$146.5 million to US$92.9 million, short-term borrowings rose from US$10.6 million to US$38.8 million and cash at the end of the year was US$7.1 million, according to the same report.

The group is far more than its teams. Talent management brought in US$62.8 million, nearly half of revenue, and event production US$31.9 million. A mining activity in digital currency accounted for nearly 16% of revenue, Sheep Esports reported. The company is headquartered in Abu Dhabi, with offices in China and Brazil, and is led by two co-chief executives, Hicham Chahine and Mario Ho.

What esports brings in

Esports revenue was US$11.8 million in 2025, down from US$14.7 million in 2024, a fall Sheep Esports attributed to lower sponsorship income and a smaller share of league revenue. That is about 9% of the group's total.

The group came out of a merger between Ninjas in Pyjamas and eStar Gaming, a Chinese organization, Sheep Esports recalls, and the accounts separate the two origins. The table shows the lines for which the report gives both figures.

On three lines of four, the Chinese and other subsidiaries earn more than the brand that gives the group its name. Sponsorship is the exception, and it is small on both sides.

The group competes in 11 game titles by Sheep Esports' count, among them League of Legends, Counter-Strike, EA Sports FC, Honor of Kings, Apex Legends and Rainbow Six Siege. Its League of Legends team plays in the LPL, the Chinese league, in the place eStar's side held before the merger.

In March the company announced job cuts in Sweden, and its Stockholm operations were moved to Abu Dhabi, the same outlet reported. In a statement sent to Sheep Esports and published on May 29, NIP Group said it was eliminating some operational roles for esports in Sweden. "At the same time, our esports teams will be staying where they are," the statement said. It added that staff had not been asked to relocate.

Ninjas in Pyjamas on the server

For followers of Counter-Strike 2, the months of the Nasdaq procedure were months of rebuilding. Ninjas in Pyjamas failed to qualify for the Cologne Major, one of the game's flagship tournaments, after a loss to HEROIC at an event in Barcelona on April 3, HLTV reported. On April 15 the team benched its sniper r1nkle and, 35 minutes later, announced the signing of stavn to take that role. It had made xKacpersky's loan from ENCE a permanent transfer two weeks earlier.

On June 22 the team promoted n0te from Young Ninjas, its academy side, as a temporary fifth player while cairne moved to the bench, and three days later G2 Esports announced it had signed r1nkle. HLTV ranked Ninjas in Pyjamas 26th in the world that week. The team was on the list of 32 for the second season of BLAST Bounty, whose online stage began on July 21, the day of Nasdaq's letter.

For the parent company, Nasdaq has closed the deficiency matter. The rule itself keeps applying: a new deficiency would need the closing bid to stay under US$1.00 for 30 business days in a row.

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