Here is a takeover that no one saw coming: SEGA has just acquired the company Rovio, to which we owe the mobile game Angry Birds, for the tidy sum of 706 million euros. This amount is equivalent to a buyback of €9.25 per share, i.e. approximately 20% less than its initial valuation. SEGA also intends to finalize the takeover during the third quarter, with the takeover being implemented between the beginning of May and July 2023. So certainly, we are far from the stratospheric amounts that Microsoft has put on the table to acquire Bethesda Softworks and Activision -Blizzard in recent years, but for a publisher of SEGA’s caliber, the takeover is not trivial. It must be said that Rovio’s growth had plateaued in recent years, despite a follow-up to its video game, film adaptations, and even an amusement park, not to mention an IPO in 2017. This takeover of Rovio by SEGA has several interests: to allow the Japanese publisher to strengthen itself in the mobile market, a sector in which SEGA is betting enormously and to combine the strengths of the two companies makes it possible to see the future with a more confident eye. For its part, Rovio will be able to take advantage of SEGA’s expertise in derivative products to try to diversify its offer, and above all to break away from the original video game media. David Gibson, an analyst at MST Financial, told the Financial Times that “Angry Birds revenue still represents 60-70% of their business, expansion plans haven’t been as big as Rovio wanted. She who thought she was no longer a video game company still is.
