A mannequin of Angry Birds character ‘Red’ sits on show contained in the reception space of the Rovio Entertainment Oy headquarters in Espoo, Finland, on Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019.
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Japanese gaming large Sega introduced Monday it has made a 706 million euro ($776 million) supply for the maker of the Angry Birds puzzle sport, Finland’s Rovio Entertainment Oyj.
The deal can be for the whole lot of Rovio’s excellent shares and choices, valuing the shares at 9.25 euros per share, a roughly 19% premium to their closing value earlier than the announcement, Sega mentioned. It’s valuing the choices at 1.48 euros.
Rovio’s board is in assist of the supply, the corporate added.
Rovio video games have been downloaded over 5 billion occasions, based on the assertion Monday. Meanwhile its Angry Birds franchise has been licensed into different leisure and shopper merchandise.
Tokyo-based Sega was based in 1960 and is best-known for its Sonic the Hedgehog and Total War franchises, as nicely consoles together with the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, widespread outdoors of Japan within the Nineteen Nineties.
It needs to make use of Rovio to develop its presence within the cellular gaming market and mentioned it could use its live-operated cellular sport improvement capabilities to spice up improvement of mobile-based variations of its current video games.
The Wall Street Journal had beforehand reported the Rovio deal was anticipated to be value round $1 billion.
Rovio shares had been up 17.88% at 9:00 a.m. London time.
Shares of Sega Sammy, the holding firm of Sega following its 2004 merger with video games maker Sammy, closed 4.2% decrease on Monday earlier than the acquisition was introduced.
“Among the rapidly growing global gaming market, the mobile gaming market has especially high potential, and it has been SEGA’s long-term goal to accelerate its expansion in this field,” mentioned Sega Sammy’s Group CEO, Haruki Satomi, in an announcement.
Angry Birds is “loved across the world,” he mentioned. “I am confident that, through combination of both companies’ brands, characters, fanbase, as well as corporate culture and functionality, there will be significant synergies created going forward.”
Rovio CEO Alexandre Pelletier-Normand mentioned Red, the lead character in Angry Birds, and Sonic the Hedgehog had been “two globally recognized and iconic characters made by two remarkably complementary companies, with a worldwide reach that spans mobile, PC/console, and beyond.”
Source: www.cnbc.com