Rumours of a potential management buyout of Hands-On Mobile's EMEA division have been rumbling for a while now, but the story has finally broken.
MocoNews has interviewed Hands-On president Niccolo de Masi, who confirms that the division is being split off. However, it's seemingly more complex than a pure MBO or sale.
The EMEA division will be "transferred" to Connect 2 Media, the firm set up by former Hands-On EMEA president Eric Hobson.
Hands-On will retain a minority stake in the new company though, as will Connect 2 Media, and Acuity, with the latter reportedly investing $6.7 million into the company.
"We've effectively taken a smaller stake in a much larger entity
We don't consider ourselves to be selling anything to be honest," says de Masi.
It's a complex deal with plenty of cooks. But the real question is how the new outfit plans to ramp up and take on its rivals in the European mobile games business.
We hope to bring you more detail on that later today.
Meanwhile, Hands-On Mobile itself now has a clear North American focus, where it's been going great guns with Guitar Hero III Mobile. Earlier this year, it sold its Korean studio to Electronic Arts.
News
Contributing Editor
Stuart is a freelance journalist and blogger who's been getting paid to write stuff since 1998. In that time, he's focused on topics ranging from Sega's Dreamcast console to robots. That's what you call versatility. (Or a short attention span.)
Related Articles
Top Stories
News
May 4th, 2024
PocketGamer.biz Podcast Week in Views E10 - Brawl Stars smashes 2023 revenue, Square Enix’s extraordinary losses, and Haaland signs for Clash of Clans
News
May 3rd, 2024
Week in Views - Apple back themselves bigstyle, Clash bags Haaland and dreams come true at King
Events
LA Games Conference 2024 | North America | May 6th |
Mobidictum Meetup Berlin May 2024 | Europe | May 7th |
Valencia Indie Summit 2024 | Europe | May 16th |
Mobidictum Meetup Tallinn May 2024 | Europe | May 21st |
Israel Mobile Summit 2024 | Middle East | Jun 6th |
WN Conference Istanbul 2024 | Jun 11th | |
DevGAMM Vilnius 2024 | Europe | Jun 14th |
Develop: Brighton 2024 | Europe | Jul 9th |