Tencent makes offer to acquire Sumo Group for over $1 billion
The group that presides over Sumo Digital and around 14 total studios will soon become part of the Tencent empire.
Even despite an overall crackdown ongoing in Chinese cybersecurity and stock market business, Tencent continues to be one of the largest gaming groups in the world and is continually growing. That reach is about to extend even further in a major upcoming deal. Recently, it put forth an offer to acquire Sumo Group, to which Sumo Digital belongs. It will do so for a sum totaling over £900 million, or over $1 billion USD.
Tencent submitted its offer to fully acquire Sumo Group at the group’s current valuation of £919 million, as reported by The Guardian. Tencent already owned a minority stake in the company, but ahead of the deal, Tencent said it had garnered pledges from holders of about 27 percent of Sumo Groups shares to back the takeover. With Tencent’s offer, share price for Sumo Group jumped by about 40 percent to 499p. With this in mind, Sumo’s board recently agreed to Tencent’s offer to acquire all shares at a price of 513p a share.
At a value of over $1 billion USD, Tencent’s acquisition runs alongside another monster buyout earlier this year when Electronic Arts acquired Codemasters for $1.2 billion. Sumo Digital has been in the game since around 2003 as a studio for hire. It has aided in the development of major titles across the last two decades, including the new Hitman games (excluding Hitman 3), the LittleBigPlanet franchise, and Disney Infinity. It also aided Sega in hits such as the OutRun franchise and the entire Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing series. Most recently, it put forth a pretty good solo effort in the form of Hood: Outlaws & Legends.
If the deal goes through (and there’s little to say it won’t at this point), Tencent will acquire Sumo Group’s 14 worldwide studios and their ongoing capabilities. Despite the fact that Tencent was recently blocked from a merger that would have solidified its dominance over the video game livestream scene in China, it continues to grow as one of the largest gaming empires worldwide.
