Supercell Oy, the company that made Clash of Clans and Clash Royale, is being acquired by Chinese tech giant Tencent, for a whopping $ 8.6 billion. The deal was sealed recently but the acquisition will be completed in stages.
As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Supercell's stake owned by Japan's SoftBank Group is being acquired by Tencent and its partners. The deal is expected to give Supercell access to a large Chinese market through Tencent's platforms including WeChat and MobileQQ messaging apps. Tencent meanwhile can expand globally through Supercell, which is now valued at $10.2 billion.
According to The Telegraph, SoftBank purchased 51 % Supercell stake in 2013 when the company was valued at $ 3 billion. In three years, the company's value has trebled. Supercell is also the maker of Hay Day. Two other mobile games of the company, Clash Royale and Boom Beach, have been extremely successful and are among the top grossing apps in Google and Apple's stores.
Talk of Supercell acquisition has been around for about a week during which its chief executive Ilkka Paananen said the company would not want to go public and work independently in small teams. Tencent has reportedly assured Supercell that its work culture will remain intact and the company can operate from Helsinki.
"This deal enables us to keep Supercell privately held. That is a better match with our small size and unique culture than being a public company where our concern would be the pressure from financial markets to think short term," Paananen said. "However, while enabling us to stay private, the partnership with Tencent provides us with some of the benefits of being public."
Mobile gaming is a huge earner for game makers. Tencent's President Martin Lau said the company is bullish about mobile games market. Supercell's acquisition comes on the heels of Activision acquiring King Digital Entertainment, the maker of Candy Crush saga.
