SoftBank Buys 51% in Finnish developer Supercell Oy for $1.53 billion to add games including “Clash of Clans” and “Hay Day.”
October 15, 2013 Leave a comment
SoftBank Buys ‘Clash of Clans’ Developer Majority Stake
SoftBank Corp. (9984), Japan’s third-largest wireless carrier, bought a 51 percent stake in the Finnish developer Supercell Oy for $1.53 billion to add games including “Clash of Clans” and “Hay Day.” The deal values all of the game developer at $3 billion and will help accelerate global growth, Supercell Chief Executive Officer Ilkka Paananen said by phone today. SoftBank, led by billionaire President Masayoshi Son, is making deals in Europe and North America to tap growth amid a declining population at home. The company paid $21.6 billion for control of Sprint Corp. and invested $150 million in 2010 to acquire a minority stake in Zynga Game Network Inc.SoftBank, founded in 1981, owns stakes in more than 1,000 Internet operations including Yahoo Japan Corp. (4689), Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Ustream Inc., according to the company’s website.
The deal was reported earlier by Nikkei.
SoftBank will complete the deal in the next month, the company said in a statement to the Tokyo stock exchange
Tokyo-based SoftBank made GungHo Online Entertainment Inc., the maker of “Puzzle & Dragons”game, a unit in April.
Son is forecasting record domestic earnings this year as he accelerates the addition of new subscribers and the Sprint deal saves $2 billion annually by pooling purchases of handsets and network equipment.
SoftBank rose 0.1 percent to 7,240 yen today in Tokyo trading. The shares have more than doubled this year while Japan’s benchmark Topix index has added 39 percent.
To contact the reporters on this story: Adam Ewing in Stockholm at aewing5@bloomberg.net; Takashi Amano in Tokyo at tamano6@bloomberg.net
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