gameplay.com buys five German businesses
Online games portal gameplay.com has marched further into continental Europe, buying five games businesses from Germany's Computec Media AG for £47.6 million. The purchases, which follow last month's smaller but strategic purchase of Joysoft GmbH, is part of gameplay's push to replicate in Germany its UK position as the player to beat in online games.
'The UK and Germany take up about 40% of the computer games market, so if we can win out in the UK and Germany then we have a pretty good chance at winning out in Europe overall,' Chief Executive Mark Bernstein told Reuters.
Gameplay was looking to land deals in other parts of Europe, including Scandinavia, Italy, France and Spain, he said. 'We're talking to various people. We might hope to make further announcements perhaps by the end of the next quarter,' he said in a telephone interview.
Shares in gameplay gained 81 pence or 10.9% to a fresh high of 822- 1/2 pence by 1315.
The Computec businesses, with total revenues of £22.8 million, give it a market leading position in Germany's computer games market, the company said. They will be funded with £11.8 million cash and £35.8 million worth of gameplay shares. The company raised £50 million in early February to fund both expansion and development of interactive digital TV channels.
The businesses include computer and video games mail order business Theo Kranz, wholesaler Dynatex GmbH, German language online games developer Neo Software, and GameSite GmbH, a games community and online games hosting site. Gameplay also bought Computec's online games division.
As part of the deal, gameplay entered two-year agreements to be the sole games e-commerce partner on Computec's magazine-related websites and for access to Computec's content database for reproduction on all gameplay channels.
In January, gameplay paid £2.5 million in cash for Cologne-based Joysoft, which sells computer and video games via its mail order catalogue, its website and retailers.
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