A group of Chinese companies led by the Internet giant Sina, which owns the microblogging service Weibo, plan to buy a stake in the studio Yoozoo Games (League of Angels). The estimated volume of the transaction is $447 million.
Source: VCG
The ongoing negotiations are reported by Reuters with reference to two people familiar with the situation.
According to them, Sina, its subsidiary Weibo and a state investment firm from Shanghai are ready to buy at least 18% of the developers’ shares worth $447 million. Now the entire Yoozoo Games is estimated at $2.5 billion.
The consortium is also going to buy some “remaining shares” from the heirs of Lin Qi, the founder of Yoozoo Games. Before his death in December 2020, he owned 24% of the Chinese studio. Reuters does not specify exactly how many of these securities Sina and its partners want to purchase, but it is possible that we are talking about 6%. So much remains in the Qi package, provided that 18% of the shares claimed by the companies were also included in it.
It should be noted that earlier negotiations on the purchase of a stake in Yoozoo Games were conducted by another Chinese giant Bilibili. He claimed just 24% of the company, which he estimated at $765 million. But according to one of the sources, Bilibili later refused the deal because it was moving too slowly.
So far, neither side has commented on the information to Reuters.
Yoozoo Games was founded in 2009 and is now engaged in both the development and publication of games. Among her most famous projects are the MMORPG League of Angels and the browser strategy Game of Thrones: Winter Is Coming.
In the future, the studio intends to do cinema as well. Recently, she received the rights to the film adaptation of the fantasy novel “The Task of Three Bodies”. According to Reuters sources, this was one of the main reasons why the consortium led by Sina decided to acquire a stake in Yoozoo Games.