Japanese telecommunications company Softbank has acquired a 51% stake in Supercell for a huge sum of $ 1.5 billion.
In a Supercell blog, the CEO of the Finnish company Ilkka Paananen called the deal a strategic investment.
“Tablets, mobile and free-to-play business models have created a new market. It has reached billions of people, more than ever in the history of games. This is a real new gaming era, opening up amazing opportunities for new types of companies,” Ilkka explains the reason for the deal.
Ilkka Paananen and SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son“One of the main desires of Supercell is to become the first truly global gaming company with a foothold in both the West and the East.
We want to create a company that in 30 years people will look at and talk about all the great games we have made and what role they have played in their lives. It must be a feeling akin to what I feel for Nintendo today.”
According to Ilkki, Softbank’s strategic investment will help Supercell achieve these goals.
The deal also takes Supercell’s cooperation with GungHo, owned by Softbank, to a new level, because now 10.2% of the Finnish company belongs to the authors of Puzzle& Dragons (out of $1.5 billion, the latter invested $ 300 million).
Supercell production remains in Finland, management in Helsinki and San Francisco, and the company will continue to pay taxes to the Finnish state.