King Digital Entertainment, creators of top grossing titles including Candy Crush Saga and Candy Crush Soda Saga, has been acquired by Activision Blizzard. The company announced the deal worth $5.9 billion in a press release, which sees Activision acquire all of King’s outstanding shares, which is expected to be completed by Spring 2016.
Activision-Blizzard will pay a premium of 18 percent to King’s closing price on Monday, which amounts to $18 per share. While the company will also hold an earnings call to discuss these results toady, November 3, starting at 5 AM PDT / 8 AM EDT.
“Activision Blizzard believes that the addition of King’s highly-complementary business will position Activision Blizzard as a global leader in interactive entertainment across mobile, console and PC platforms, and positions the company for future growth,” reads an excerpt from the press release.
With the new deal, Activision Blizzard, which is already a household name in the console and PC market with cult franchises such as Call of Duty, Diablo, World of Warcraft to name a few, gets a sort of headstart in the ever growing business of mobile games. Notably, the combined portfolio will account for at least 10 of the world’s most iconic video game titles. The acquisition undeniably further solidifies Activision Blizzard’s position as one of the leading providers of interactive entertainment across all platforms.
“With a combined global network of more than half a billion monthly active users, our potential to reach audiences around the world on the device of their choosing enables us to deliver great games to even bigger audiences than ever before,” said Activision Blizzard Chief Executive Bobby Kotick
Apparently, the deal comes months after King’s shares fell as far as 14 percent that was revealed in its financial earnings report back in May. Though, despite that, King’s chief executive Riccardo Zacconi seemed rather optimistic about the studio’s performance, pointing to the fact that three of its games are among the top ten grossing games on the Play Store and AppStore. He further added that the studio plans to bring Candy Crush on Windows 10 devices, along with a new game to look forward to by the end of the year 2015.
