GungHo sells Supercell shares and promises to focus on Asian market
GungHo, the creator of the Puzzle & Dragons game, is selling a 20% stake in Supercell to its parent company SoftBank. The profit from the transaction is estimated at $74 million.
Recall that in 2013, 51% of Supercell shares were sold to SoftBank and GungHo; the transaction value was $1.5 billion. The share of each of the companies is estimated at $1.2 billion and $306 million, respectively.
In the current fiscal year, GungHo announced the sale of a 20% stake in Supercell to SoftBank. The deal is valued at $344 million. What makes the financial operation interesting, firstly, is the fact that SoftBank is the founding company of GungHo, that is, Supercell shares have de facto remained “in the family”, having changed the owner only nominally. Secondly, GungHo claims that the profit from the transaction amounted to $74 million, although it is obvious that the profit (which is obtained by subtracting from the price of 20% of Supercell shares the share invested in the purchase of GungHo) could not exceed $38 million.
It should be noted that GungHo’s business is going uphill: in addition to the mentioned transaction, in 2014 the company announced the opening of a subsidiary in Singapore.
The creators of Puzzle & Dragons report that they got rid of the shares of the Finnish company Supercell in order to fully focus on the Asian mobile market.
Before the release of Puzzle & Dragons, it was mainly known for hosting Ragnarok Online servers.
