The developer of Angry Birds decided to go shopping again. Finnish Rovio has announced the takeover of Ruby Games, the creators of the hyper-casual hit Hunter Assassin. The exact size of the transaction is not disclosed.
Rovio promised to transfer the money for the studio into seven tranches:
- the first tranche will take place at the end of the third or early fourth quarter of 2021. Then the company will pay $10 million in cash for a 20% stake in Ruby Games;
- the second tranche will take place in October 2022 — Rovio will buy another 50% of the shares of the Turkish studio for no more than $ 80 million. Of these, 60% will be transferred in cash, and 40% — in their own shares. The amount of the amount will depend on the financial performance of Ruby Games;
- Finns will acquire the remaining 30% of Ruby Games shares within the framework of five equal tranches, which will be paid over the next five years. The amount will also depend on the financial success of Ruby Games and will not exceed the EBITDA that the studio will earn during this period.
According to Rovio CEO Alex Pelletier-Normand, the purchase of Ruby Games will allow the Finnish company to enter the hyper-casual market and gain a new audience.
Ruby Games is primarily known for the 2D action game Hunter Assassin. In 2020, it became the sixth most popular mobile game in the world, collecting over 100 million downloads. In total, he currently has 306 million downloads, according to AppMagic (the title was released in the fall of 2019). The studio is currently working on a sequel, which is scheduled for release in late 2021 or early 2022.
Note that Rovio rarely engages in M&A. One of her last disclosed purchases was the Danish studio Darkfire Games, formerly known as Wargaming Denmark. This deal took place last June.
Nevertheless, in the financial report for the first quarter of 2021, Rovio mentioned that it had recently bought two more development studios. But she did not explain what kind of studios they were.
Simultaneously with the announcement of the acquisition of Ruby Games, the company also announced the results for the first half of 2021. During this time, Rovio earned €135.9 million, which is 0.1% more than in the first half of 2020. But its operating profit fell by 39.6% to €16.2 million.