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Sega reportedly nearing $1 billion deal to acquire Angry Birds dev Rovio Entertainment

Sega and Angry Birds developer Rovio are rumored to be on the verge of a deal worth nearly $1 billion.
Asif Khan
Asif Khan
SuperSonicWoody
7

Sega has been caught up in a lot of acquisition rumors in the past few years, and most of those stories involve a larger company gobbling up the company behind Sonic the Hedgehog. Today, a report has surfaced that Sega may be acquiring Angry Bird developer Rovio in a deal worth nearly $1 billion. Rovio has been shopping itself around, with a rumored $800 million deal with Playtik Holding Corp. falling through last month.

WSJ is reporting that a nearly $1 billion deal to acquire Rovio may close early next week. The report does not detail how much of the deal would be in stock or cash. Rovio has never been able to beat the smash hit success of their game Angry Birds, which the company claims was the first mobile game to be downloaded 1 billion times. Rovio's stock is still down over 30% from its IPO that took place in 2017.

Image of Rovio's stock chart since its IPO date that highlights the 30% decline over a nearly six-year period.
Rovio's stock price has fallen nearly 30% from its IPO in 2017.
Source: Google Finance

This certainly isn't the first time we have seen a third party game developer make a splash in the mobile space, with Activision Blizzard gobbling up Candy Crush dev King Digital Entertainment, and Take-Two Interactive recently acquiring Zynga for over $10 billion. It remains to be seen how well Sega is going to be able to absorb Rovio if the deal closes.

Mobile gaming is in a bit of a recession currently, with revenues dropping year-over-year in 2022 after very strong performance from mobile devs during the lockdown years of 2020 and 2021. As for what Sega and Rovio have cooking, we will have to wait and see if this rumored deal will lead to more Sega IP appearing on mobile devices. With nearly a billion dollars on the line, this could be a very big move for Sonic and company. 

Keep it locked on Shacknews for all the video game market news as it breaks. 

CEO/EIC/EIEIO
CEO/EIC/EIEIO

Asif Khan is the CEO, EIC, and majority shareholder of Shacknews. He began his career in video game journalism as a freelancer in 2001 for Tendobox.com. Asif is a CPA and was formerly an investment adviser representative. After much success in his own personal investments, he retired from his day job in financial services and is currently focused on new private investments. His favorite PC game of all time is Duke Nukem 3D, and he is an unapologetic fan of most things Nintendo. Asif first frequented the Shack when it was sCary's Shugashack to find all things Quake. When he is not immersed in investments or gaming he is a purveyor of fine electronic music. Asif also has an irrational love of Cleveland sports.

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