Deal

GungHo makes $74 million selling its share of Supercell back to SoftBank

Japanese dev is now focusing on Asia market

Date Type Companies involved Size
August 21st, 2014 acquisition GungHo Online Entertainment
SoftBank
Supercell
$344m
GungHo makes $74 million selling its share of Supercell back to SoftBank

One of the biggest stories of 2013 was SoftBank and GungHo Online's $1.5 billion deal to buy 51 percent of Supercell.

Rather fewer headlines have been raised, however, by the news that GungHo has now sold its 20 percent slice of that 51 percent to SoftBank.

SoftBank owns a majority stake in GungHo so the move doesn't change much in terms of Supercell's ownership.

To some extent it cleans up the financial chain of command.

Closer to home

More significant, perhaps, is the reasoning behind the deal. 

Despite having $729 million in cash and generating $150 million during the three months ending 30 June 2014, GungHo also announced it was setting up a local subsidiary in Singapore.

The plan is that this studio will work on new mobile games for emerging markets in southeast Asia.

In combination, GungHo will invest around $300 million to acquire content for publishing.

To that extent, the extraordinary profit of $73 million it will generate from the sale of its Supercell shares will come in rather handy.

[source: Serkan Toto]


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Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.