Deal

Japanese telecoms firm Softbank acquires majority stake in Puzzle & Dragons developer GungHo Online

Spends $265m on Google Play's top grossing dev

Date Type Companies involved Size
March 26th, 2013 investment GungHo Online Entertainment
SoftBank
$265m
Japanese telecoms firm Softbank acquires majority stake in Puzzle & Dragons developer GungHo Online
Japanese telecommunications company SoftBank Mobile has launched a tender offer to acquire a majority stake in Puzzle & Dragons developer GungHo Online Entertainment.

The firm plans to spend $265 million on 73,400 GungHo shares, increasing its stake in the developer from 33.6 percent to 58.5 percent.

The deal, which will take place between 1 April and 26 April 2013, will make GungHo Online a SoftBank subsidiary.

Big money

GungHo Online is currently the top grossing developer on Google Play – according to the estimates of App Annie and Distimo – mostly thanks to the success of a single game.

In fact, Puzzle & Dragons is probably the most lucrative mobile game in the world right now, generating more than $50 million a month.

The game's popularity has driven GungHo's share price up considerably in recent months. With a market cap in excess of $5 billion, the company is valued higher than GREE, Zynga or DeNA.

A little respect

In its announcement, Softbanks notes that it intends to preserve GungHo's "highly independent and free and broad minded corporate culture," and that it "thinks very highly of [GungHo's] ability to plan and develop game content."

As such, Softbank pledges to "respect the autonomy and independence of management as much as possible and strive to utilise [GungHo's] superior creativity and development ability, so it will maintain the current composition of [GungHo's] management."

As for the motivation behind the share acquisition, Softbank notes that this is part of its strategy to "become No.1 in mobile Internet."

[source: Softbank (PDF)]
Staff Writer

PocketGamer.biz's news editor 2012-2013