Take-Two buys Codemaster for 820 million euros
Codemaster, which owns the official F1 game franchise, has just received a purchase offer of nearly one billion dollars from Take-Two. The British group will therefore be acquired in the coming days by the American giant.
Codemaster went public in June 2018 on the London Stock Exchange in what is known as the unregulated market. Just last year, the company doubled its market valuation with a 111% increase in its share value.
It took no less to convince Take-Two Interactive, one of the world’s leading video game companies, to launch a takeover bid of nearly $1 billion for the Codemasters group.
Founded in 1986 in England, the Codemaster studio took over the official F1 game franchise in 2009. E-Sports has revolutionized the way of playing, and Codemaster was highlighted this year notably due to the pandemic and the organization of F1 E-Grand Prix events and Twitch streams by young drivers like Lando Norris, Alex Albon, Charles Leclerc, or George Russell.
Take-Two, for its part—although less known in Europe—is certainly familiar to you if we mention video games like GTA or NBA, which they produce under their brands 2K and Rockstar Games. The New York-based group released a press statement earlier this week: « Take-Two believes that the combination of Take-Two and Codemasters will allow the merger of two portfolios of world-class and complementary game franchises. We will be able to benefit from economies of scale in distribution, analytics operations, product development, and marketing. »
The offer of more than 800 million euros, or 973 million dollars, will be presented to shareholders on December 4 for validation and acceptance.
