News

Chinese chemical firm acquires Talking Tom developer Outfit7 for €1 billion

Developer put up for sale in late 2016

Date Type Companies involved Size
January 18th, 2017 Outfit7 $1,000m
Chinese chemical firm acquires Talking Tom developer Outfit7 for €1 billion

Update: Outfit7 has officially confirmed that the company has been sold for $1 billion to a consortium of investors from Asia, represented by United Luck Group Holdings Limited.

Original story: Chinese chemical firm Zhejiang Jinke Entertainment Culture has acquired Talking Tomdeveloper Outfit7 for €1 billion, according to reports.

Multiple news sites in Slovenia, where the developer has an office though its HQ is based in the UK, claim the deal took place in late December 2016 at a price of $100 per share.

It was claimed in November by 2TM that the firm had been put up for sale, which claimed back then that Zhejiang Jinke was interested in the developer.

Local website Jutarnji List now states the deal is now going through and is one of the biggest foreign takeovers in the Slovenia’s history.

Outfit7 was previously majority owned by Sam and Iza Login, who owned a 60% stake in the company.

Stranger things

Zhejiang Jinke Entertainment Culture, which mainly deals in the manufacture and sale of peroxides and activating agents, is not the only Chinese company to expand into games, having previously had nothing to do with the industry.

Examples include Sumpo Food Holdings’ acquisition of a majority stake in Warframe developer Digital Extremes in 2014, while in 2016 Chinese chicken poultry firm Leyou Technologies bought UK studio Splash Damage.

Jagex was also bought out by a group of Chinese investors in 2016, which had strong ties to Shandong Hongda Mining Co Ltd, a company that engages in mining activities.

Billions of downloads

The news comes as Outfit7 launches a new game called My Talking Hank, who is a talking dog.

The developer’s portfolio of apps have been downloaded more than 5.6 billion times, with 10.3 billion video views of its projects viewed online.

Outfit7 had previously opened a monetisation and UA platform called Bee7, but as of late 2016 that company is no longer supplying its services to third-party developers.


Head of Content

Craig Chapple is a freelance analyst, consultant and writer with specialist knowledge of the games industry. He has previously served as Senior Editor at PocketGamer.biz, as well as holding roles at Sensor Tower, Nintendo and Develop.