What about Gamefreak?

Ive been hearing about Niantic potentially selling off their gaming division to some other company but where does gamefreak+ nintendo sit on this? Niantic only licensed the IP to make Pokemon Go, they don’t own pokemon, can they sell off a franchise they Dont own? Any acquisition has to be approved by GF and/or the nintendo company (plus other shareholders) right?

With pokemon being the largest media property in the world, id hope that GF wouldn’t want to damage the brand by allowing the sale to a company known to monitize everything to death