The company Bash Gaming, the authors of Bingo Bash, was acquired by GSN Games, operating the gambling portal of the same name. The transaction amount is estimated at $160 – $170 million.
At least, these figures were named by Adam Krejcik, an analyst at Eilers Research. He estimated Bash Gaming’s revenues for the past year at $60 – $70 million: 42% of revenue came from Facebook, the remaining 58% from mobile devices. So in the fourth quarter of 2013, Bash Gaming took the seventh place in the world top box office publishers of social gambling.
We asked Viktor Zakharchenko, COO KamaGames Studio, to comment on the deal.
Viktor ZakharchenkoVictor, why did Bash Gaming make this deal?
If we start from the annual revenue of $60 – $70 million, then the experts’ estimate of $160 – $170 million suggests that Bash Gaming is doing business “at the break-even level.”
Such a low multiplier proves that the company, like many market players, spends a lot on marketing, reinvesting funds. Given the fact that the company had only $1 million of attracted investments, it seems that the moment has come for it when it either needed to raise more money to hold positions, or to sell.
What does this GSN Games deal bring?For GSN, this is a very lucrative deal – they get a strong product in their social casino line and kill a competitor.
Are such purchases a trend?Yes. We can recall that in December 2012 Caesars, which had previously absorbed Playtika with their hit Slotomania, bought the developer of Bingo Blitz – the company Buffalo Studios.
The social casino market continues to expand. I assume that by the end of the year there will not be so many “separate” products that are not included in any of the lines.