A mannequin of Indignant Birds character ‘Crimson’ sits on show contained in the reception space of the Rovio Leisure 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) provide for the maker of the Indignant Birds puzzle recreation, Finland’s Rovio Leisure 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 stated. It is valuing the choices at 1.48 euros.
Rovio’s board is in help of the provide, the corporate added.
Rovio video games have been downloaded over 5 billion instances, in accordance with the assertion Monday. In the meantime its Indignant Birds franchise has been licensed into different leisure and client merchandise.
Tokyo-based Sega was based in 1960 and is best-known for its Sonic the Hedgehog and Complete Battle franchises, as nicely consoles together with the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, standard exterior of Japan within the Nineties.
It needs to make use of Rovio to broaden its presence within the cellular gaming market and stated it will use its live-operated cellular recreation improvement capabilities to spice up improvement of mobile-based variations of its current video games.
The Wall Road Journal had beforehand reported the Rovio deal was anticipated to be value round $1 billion.
Rovio shares have been up 17.8% at 11:00 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 many quickly rising world gaming market, the cellular gaming market has particularly excessive potential, and it has been SEGA’s long-term aim to speed up its growth on this area,” stated Sega Sammy’s Group CEO, Haruki Satomi, in an announcement.
Indignant Birds is “cherished the world over,” he stated. “I’m assured that, by means of mixture of each corporations’ manufacturers, characters, fanbase, in addition to company tradition and performance, there might be vital synergies created going ahead.”
Rovio CEO Alexandre Pelletier-Normand stated Crimson, the lead character in Indignant Birds, and Sonic the Hedgehog have been “two globally acknowledged and iconic characters made by two remarkably complementary corporations, with a worldwide attain that spans cellular, PC/console, and past.”