Tencent makes offer to wholly acquire Norwegian developer Funcom.
Tech giant Tencent has today announced a voluntary cash offer to acquire all shares in Norwegian game developer Funcom.
Tencent is already a shareholder in many leading gaming devlopers, such as Riot Games, Epic, Supercell, Ubisfot, Paradox and Frontier. It already owns close to 29% of the shares in Funcom, but has now made an offer for full ownership.
Fumcom CEO Rui Casais had this to say on the offer: “We have had a great relationship with Tencent as our largest shareholder so far and we are excited about this opportunity. We will continue to develop great games that people all over the world will play, and we believe that the support of Tencent will take Funcom to the next level. Tencent will provide Funcom with operational leverage and insights from its vast knowledge as the leading company in the game space.”
Funcom currently trades on the Oslo Stock Exchange and Tencent is seeking to acquire shares directly from all the other shareholders, offering NOK 17.00 per share, which is 27.3% higher than the closing price on 21 January.
The offer period is expected to being early February and during that time shareholders are free to either accept of reject the offer. Funcom’s management board and supervisory board have both unanimously agreed to recommend that shareholders do accept the offer.
At present there are no planned changes to Funcom management, staffing or structure with the company set to remain as an independent business. Games such as Conan Exiles, Secret World Legends, Age of Conan, and Anarchy Online will continue to be supported.
Steven Ma, Senior Vice President of Tencent had this to say on the news: “We are impressed by Funcom’s strengths as a developer of open-world multiplayer, action and survival games. Funcom has a strong track-record in developing new titles with long life span. We are glad to deepen our relationship with Funcom and look forward to collaborating with Funcom to deliver more exciting and enjoyable game experiences to fans worldwide.”
Funcom is currently developing an open-world multiplayer survival game based on Frank Herbert’s Dune.
