Archive for the ‘Companies & M&A’ Category

Will Zed buy Monstermob?

December 13th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

MonsterMob, a channel much like Jamba, is financial problems according to several sources. MocoNews reports the possibility of a takeover by Spanish based Zed, who is currently promoting their mobile games download service on several spots and also active in the UK. The takeover could mean the joint entity will become one of the biggest off portal channels in the UK. If the deal doesn’t pull trough, it will be at least six months before the next possible buyer can be attracted. With the latest developments, I guess it wouldn’t be strange for a company like Swisscom to be interested as well.

UTV buys itself into IndiaGames.

December 8th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

Moconews reports UTV has bought 51% of the shares in IndiaGames. They spend a total of $ 29 million on the purchase. Moconews expects the shares to have come from TOM Online who used to be the majority shareholder. IndiaGames reported a $ 5 million annual revenue for it’s last fiscal year and houses 270 employees. TOM Online is also reported as shareholder in Hutchinson. If they really sold off their share in IndiaGames, what will they do with the Hutchinson shares?

GameFederation acquires Daydream

December 8th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

We reported it before (31-10-2006), but now it’s official. GameFederation has bought all shares of Daydream from 24h Poker. GameFederation made clear in it’s pressrelease that it expects to strategically expand it’s coverage on operators and make use of the close connection that Daydream has with SonyEricsson and Nokia. The acquisition also gives GameFederation access to Harry Potter, Loony Tunes, Batman, Superman and Mastermind licenses.

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THQ’s Q2 & Minick

December 6th, 2006 by Anonymous Blogger Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

Arjan recently posted about the sale of the Minick shares by THQ to Swisscom. Reason for my to take a dive in the last financial numbers to see if it might shed some light on the sale. Looking at THQ’s Q2 financials, which where posted by THQ last month, the wireless division (still including Minick) has declined in total % vs. other gaming platforms. In Q2 2005, wireless revenue accounted for 6.3% of the sales while in Q2 2006, this number declined to 2.9%. This looks dramatic, but if we look at the total THQ net revenues in those periods, we can say THQ Wireless accounted for $ 8.989.596 in Q2 2005 and in Q2 2006 for $ 6.965.713 which means wireless revenues have shrunk. The complete of the company was 68% up while Wireless is 32,5% down. In an interview with MobileIndustry.biz, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter tells us that the sale will have a small effect of just a few million which will hardly effect the company’s income statement. However a few million is a lot if you look at the wireless sales in percentages.

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Minick acquired by Swisscom Mobile AG

December 4th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

Swisscom announced it has purchased 100% of the Minick shares. Minick, formerly 50% owned by THQ Inc., is a specialist in platforms and aggregation of mobile content and games. The purchase allows Swisscom to expand into closely related business area’s. Financials where not disclosed. For now Swisscom does not plan any changes within Minick.

InfoSpace to sell it’s games division?

November 28th, 2006 by Anonymous Blogger Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

The industry is always full of rumours, but sometimes

Upstart’s acquisition completed by Sun TV Shops

November 27th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

We reported before on the acquisition of Irish based Upstart games by SUN TV Shops. We can now confirm the purchase is completed. SUN has bought the developer for $ 15,25 million paid in cash and shares. The 2005 turnover of Upstart was just above

Is EA buying Gameloft?

November 24th, 2006 by Anonymous Blogger Posted in Companies & M&A | 2 Comments »

From the view of a mid-size mobile games developer and publisher the strategy of the giant EA and its mobile division seems clear. After checking out the success of mobile gaming by licensing some IPs to Digital Bridges (now I-play) in 2003, EA made a big first appearance on the mobile market with the acquisition of Jamdat for a sum of $680 million in late 2005. With this move the leadership on the US market is untouchable with a market share of about 30%.

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Oberon Media acquires Blaze

November 22nd, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

Rumors around Blaze have been hanging in the air for a few months, but now it’s final. Blaze has been bought by Oberon Media. This strategic purchase expands Oberon in the mobile games market. According to the press release, Oberon will even try to offer casual PC games. I’m more interested though to see if Oberon will mobilise it’s flash games trough Blaze’s contracts with the operators. What is clear at this moment, is that the name Blaze will stop to exsist as the blaze.com website has been rebranded to Oberon media. For those who don’t know blaze, here’s the background;

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InfoSpace’s mobile strategy

November 21st, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

As most of you know, InfoSpace has closed the Elkware Studio earlier this year and their Q3 report ended with the following message;

"We’ve taken quick action to address the disappointing loss of business, aligning costs with future revenues to continue building on the strong foundation we have in mobile technology and online and mobile discovery," said Jim Voelker, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of InfoSpace, Inc.

Unfortunately, Jim Voelker’s closing statement says nothing about mobile games or content. The $ 57.8 million restructuring charges has the following breakdown according to MocoNews;

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