Tencent today announced a voluntary cash offer to acquire all shares in Norwegian game developer Funcom. Tencent is a shareholder in many leading gaming developers, such as Riot Games, Epic, Supercell, Ubisoft, Paradox and Frontier. The company already owns close to 29% shares and news of the intended takeover is greeted with enthusiasm from CEO Rui Casais. Following the intended acquisition, there are no planned changes to Funcom management, staffing, or structure, with the company set to remain independent.
Funcom is a publicly traded company on the Oslo Stock Exchange and Tencent will seek to acquire shares directly from all the other shareholders. Tencent is offering all shareholders NOK 17.00 per share, which is 27.3% higher than the closing price of Funcom shares on January 21, 2020. Shareholders are free to either accept or reject the offer during the offer period, which is expected to start February. Funcom’s management board and supervisory board have unanimously decided to recommend shareholders to accept the offer.
Funcom will also continue to support its long-running games Conan Exiles, Secret World Legends, Age of Conan, and Anarchy Online. Casais points out that Tencent has a reputation for being a responsible long-term investor, renowned for operational capabilities in online games. In connection with Tencent’s voluntary offer, the Funcom management have decided to publicly announce several strategic and operational matters. Management intends to increase the ambition level of the upcoming Dune game pending board approval, with resources being allocated from other initiatives and possible additional financing.
