Activision Blizzard, the company that owns the game rights as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Diablo, will invest about € 5.3 billion in the acquisition of King, the company responsible for creating the popular game Mobile Candy Crush.
With this deal, Activision Blizzard intends to strengthen its games portfolio for mobile devices and to establish itself as a leader in interactive entertainment, achieving a presence both on PCs and on consoles and smartphones and tablets. With oriented games segment for Guests experiencing exponential growth, Activision expects it will generate more than € 32 billion in revenue by the end of the year.
Speaking to Reuters , Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, points out that the acquisition of King will enable the company to expand its reach to new audiences, as, for example, 60% of King’s players are female. In practice, with this deal, Activision will have more than 500 million active users per month.
The acquisition is expected to be completed by the spring of next year and it is expected that the King will work as an independent business unit and continue to be led by Riccardo Zacconi, the current CEO of the company.
To close the deal, Activision will come up with € 3.2 billion in cash and a loan to Merrill Lynch and to Goldman Sachs for the remaining verba.
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