Plarium has been sold to MTG for $620 million (£495 million/€594 million). Aristocrat Leisure will receive an additional $170 million from MTG if Plarium hits sales targets in 2028.
Plarium develops free-to-play social mobile and PC games, including Raid: Shadow Legends and Vikings: War of Clans.
Aristocrat Leisure acquired the Israeli-founded Plarium in 2017 for $500 million (£353 million/€423.5 million). The Australian-based gambling machine and games producer initiated the sale of Plarium following a strategic review of the company.
In the 12 months that ended 30 September 2024, the Plarium business unit generated revenue of $613 million, with an EBITDA of $137 million.
Commenting on the deal last November, MTG’s CEO Maria Redin said: “They bring an exciting and highly successful portfolio of live games spearheaded by Raid: Shadow Legends, an exceptional evergreen mid-core IP, to our line-up. The studio also has three additional strong live games and an exciting new games pipeline in both the mid-core and the casual segments, which creates healthy optionality for future growth.
“Plarium also has best-in-class tools for user acquisition and monetisation. These tools will complement our own Flow Platform and boost the performance of some of our existing live titles.”
MTG is a Sweden-based digital games business that invests in gaming companies such as Ninja Kiwi, InnoGames and the digital network company Zoomin TV.
Aristocrat Leisure shifts focus
As part of its internal review, Aristocrat Leisure said it would refocus on building growth with its social casino, real money gaming and land-based gaming offerings.
Aristocrat Leisure said the money from the Plarium deal will be used to establish a “capital management framework” and result in a “gain on sale” in its full-year results 2025.
In its full-year results 2024 published on 13 November, Aristocrat Leisure posted revenue of AU$6.6 billion (£3.38 billion/€4.05 billion/US$4.31 billion), up 4.9% year-on-year.
It reported a total net profit of $1.56 billion, up 17.2% compared to 2023. EBITDA was $2.45 billion, up 18.5% on the previous year’s results.
The group also stated this week that it would restructure its Big Fish Games operation. Moving forward, Big Fish will be “solely focused” on its existing titles and will receive reduced investment.
“With the completion of the strategic review of our casual and mid-core gaming assets, Aristocrat is well-placed to accelerate our refreshed growth strategy,” Aristocrat CEO Trevor Croker said.
“We are deepening management focus and targeting investment behind our core strengths in regulated gaming and gaming-themed content, to unlock new and adjacent opportunities across global markets.”
Original article: https://igamingbusiness.com/strategy/ma/aristocrat-leisure-closes-plarium-sale-amidst-internal-refocuses/
