Team17 has made another major global move, with the €100m acquisition of astragon.
The company, which has studios at MediaCityUK and Wakefield has bought the German firm for an initial cash price of £63m, with a further consideration of up to £20m payable in cash on the delivery of certain performance targets. There is a further £6.25m as part of a Management Incentive Plan for the current management and staff of astragon.
Astragon is a developer, publisher and distributor of “sophisticated” ‘working’ simulation games, which is a “new and complementary” category of gaming for Team17.
It has a back catalogue of owned franchises and IP, including Firefighting Simulator, Police Simulator, Bus Simulator and Construction Simulator and a “solid pipeline” of products in development.
Team17 stated that it believed demand for non-violent and cooperative entertainment games like those created by astragon had accelerated as a result of the pandemic.
“We are delighted to welcome the astragon team into Team17, and believe we are joining forces with one of the leading experts in the simulation games space. They have decades of game creation and publishing experience, have built an outstanding and highly devoted community and have developed an outstanding portfolio of owned IP across this genre,” said Debbie Bestwick MBE, CEO of Team17.
“At Team17, we have always strived to build, develop and publish great content for the widest audience possible. With the addition of StoryToys and the expansion of our Games Label, which includes the recently acquired USA based ‘The Label’ and now astragon, we have significantly expanded Team17’s appeal to the widest ever cross section of gamers, spanning multiple genres and age groups.”
“We look forward to working closely with astragon’s joint CEOs Julia and Tim and their whole team who share our ambitions to grow their own IP titles on the path to developing a leading global simulation portfolio brand as part of the Team17 family.”
The Acquisition will be funded from the proceeds of a proposed placing of new ordinary shares in the company, raising around £80m.
“Team17 is the perfect home for astragon as we enter into this exciting new chapter. From the first day we felt that Team17 shares the same vision for our games and understands our target group,” added Julia Pfiffer and Tim Schmitz, CEOs of astragon.
“Our goal is to become the number one brand in the field of ‘working’ simulation games. Collaborating with Team17 will enable and help astragon to evolve and focus on this strategy. We look forward to the possibilities that are opened up by working with what we believe to be a great partner to deliver our ambitions.”
Its most recent results show that the Dusseldorf-based firm generated c. €26m of revenue and €5.7m of EBITDA for the year ended 31 December 2020 and had audited net assets of approximately €13.8m as at 31 December 2020.
