Supercell to sell 51% of shares to GungHo and Softbank for $1.5B | Hacker News Reader

Supercell to sell 51% of shares to GungHo and Softbank for $1.5B

arcticstartup.com

64 pointsolegp31 comments

Gotta love PR fluff:

"will accelerate Supercell towards [the] goal of being the first truly global games company"

As opposed to, say, Nintendo having accomplished that nearly three decades ago.

I think they are referring to the possibility of reaching ALL markets including Africa, South-east Asia, etc. NES was a big hit, but only in Japan, North America and Europe.

NES had some fierce competition from SEGA's Master System in developing markets, but it still sold incredibly well (one reason for it being the ease of producing pirate cartridges, which flooded these markets).

What does Mr. Son see here that I don't?

Supercell is a rockstar game development house right now. But history has shown time and time again that App development houses have a shelf life. To a lay person such as me, the averages tend to show an invariable downward spiral of DAUs with the chance of a new hit game seemingly minimal.

So why go plunk such a gargantuan amount???

Perhaps, because it was not one's own money, but money lent by bank to a corporation for a purchase of a stake. They call it a strategic investment, I suppose.

Now everyone will get their bonuses and kickbacks, and when the stock/valuation plunges (what could possibly go wrong with Zinga?) that would be someone else's problem.

Business as usual.)

I get the feeling that your comment is (purposely) so content-free that you could apply it to virtually any transaction by a suitably large company. This suggests to me that it has very little signal for this discussion, since it evinces absolutely no knowledge of either of the companies at issue or any attempt to rectify that.

For example: will Softbank require a $1.2 billion bank loan to make this purchase? That's possible (they do 100% of their borrowing in a country where money is, essentially, free for the asking) but unlikely, because they're sitting on over $14 billion in cash and cash equivalents and they hold the vast majority of it in a country where, as mentioned, money is free for the asking.

See page 106 in their annual report, or some other page at some other link if you would prefer the English version:

http://www.softbank.co.jp/ja/design_set/data/irinfo/library/...

If for some reason they wanted to borrow money, they'd probably finance with bonds, not bank loans. There's a "why" here but I just got told by the flight attendant to turn off my iPad -- ask me later if you care.

It is not about technical details but how a deal with such inflated valuation that it is obvious even for a layman could occur in principle.

I am most probably wrong about how exactly they did raise money, but this, it seems tome, is of second importance.

Personally, I don't view Supercell in the same way/league as Zynga at all. Firstly, Zynga went crazy releasing a massive number of titles really quickly and not focusing on core products. Supercell have 2 games out... yes, 2! They put a huge amount of focus into both those games and don't appear to be in any rush to dilute them whatsoever.

Also, Zynga were considered scummy for a variety of reasons - theft of others ideas (read blatantly stealing entire games from competitors) and their way over the top insistence on pollution of social networks. I don't see this behavior with Supercell at all.

Besides the team and games themselves, they are buying a strong presence in the west. In strategic terms, it's not unlike when DeNA bought ngmoco.

Three billion does seem pretty crazy. The only reasoning I can think is that Supercell has been able to create two very popular (and hugely profitable) games. Many of the rockstar game development houses never get more than one (Rovio, OMGPOP).

My guess is they'll use some of this cash to start merchandising the way Rovio did with Angry birds.

Don't forget GungHo & Supercell collaboration in Puzzle & Dragons, which is very big in Japan. That must have helped also Softbank's decision.

"An extremely popular and super addictive freemium game with over 19 million downloads in Japan and ranked as one of the top grossing apps" http://www.gunghoonline.com/games/puzzle-dragons/

"Puzzle & Dragons developer GungHo Online pulled it $763 million in sales in the first half of 2013, representing a colossal year on year rise of more than 945 percent.

As a result, the company has posted an operating profit of $460 million – up more than 4,331 percent – and net income of $287 million, up 2,609 percent." http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/GungHo+Online+news/news....

This is not an investment of $1.5 billion -- it's a stock purchase. The money goes to the sellers, not the company.

Our app worth algorithm valued Supercell on iOS as worth $1,486,676,112: https://sensortower.com/ios/publisher/supercell/488106216

1B of that being in Clash of Clans

Interesting to see them exit -- Clash of Clans hadn't showed signs of slowing down, especially given that they recently released on Android.

curious. how do you estimate how much an app is worth? Are you discounting future cash flows? If the total networth of Supercell is at 1.5B then selling it at 1.5B for 51% is not a bad deal (assuming that its value does not increase)

Big contrast to Gungho (the purchaser) and Rovio, which is worth $455,438,581 and $145,714,888.

We have models about revenue, user growth, user amounts, etc -- all valued per country, etc that we combine to make the estimation. Larger apps make this estimation a lot easier than indie apps, too. You can click through on each app and see more detailed info.

Rovio hasn't been a major player in terms of being a top grossing app recently -- they get good downloads and have brand presence, but in the age of IAP based free to play revenue (24 top grossing apps out of top 25 are free: https://sensortower.com/ios/rankings/top/iphone/us/all-categ...) Rovio's app based model isn't as sticky as long term freemium titles with long term progression. Not to say that Rovio isn't doing great in other parts of it's business!

Very impressive how accurate the valuations are. I agree that Rovio's business model isn't as great as CoC and other game publishers.

Think the valuation on Gungho is significantly off though. Gungho made 763 million the first half of 2013, compared to 455 million (http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/GungHo+Online+news/news....)

Nobody's mentioned what's pushing firms like Softbank to look for bold overseas acquisitions.

Japan has a major government debt crisis looming, and the only way out for the Japanese government is to print Yen plus financial repression. Large, profitable Japanese firms like Softbank are desperate to insulate themselves from this (and maybe even profit from it) while they still can. Converting Yen to overseas capital looks like a smart move at the moment.

the absolute crazy part? all of that was built by supporting only one platform - iOS. they just released their first android game.

what a homogenous environment with easy payment built-in can achieve. even after Apple's big bad cut on in-app payments, etc.

if you're launching a new app take note.

> The founder of Softbank, Masayoshi Son, shared with Paananen that he has a 300 year vision for reshaping entertainment, and a plan of how to implement it.

With $1.5B in the bank, he can spend $5M a year for 300 years without going bankrupt. Nice runway!

Alas, I think death and taxes will both stop him there.

What it is that makes Finland to produce these start-ups like Supercell or Rovio?

Cold dark winters with nothing else to do than play or make computer games.

I guess that makes game companies the new rock bands.

Nokia.

Plus some very enlightened Finnish policies designed to answer the question, "Where is our next Nokia going to come from?" Policies that go well beyond offering tax breaks in some government-designated "technology and biosciences hub".

Nokia was certainly part of it. Even if they failed with their N-Gage gaming phones, some of the current successful companies like Rovio started around that time. Nokia spent money and convinced some state agencies to do the same. Nokia-effect also bloated CS&E programs in higher education. No direct links can be drawn, but these opportunities to learn must have contributed something towards the current state of mobile gaming industry.

Very active demoscene-culture in the 90's was incubator for the first Finnish gaming companies. For example Remedy (Max Payne, Alan Wake), Futuremark (3DMark), Bugbear (FlatOut, Ridge Racer Unbounded) and Housemarque (Super Stardust, Dead Nation). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene

Then there was National Broadcasting Agency (YLE), which in 1985 started a radio program called Silikoni. They even sent BASIC code nationwide via the air waves, which you could tape and then use in your computer. Readers could also send their own programs, which could appear in the program. Over 120 000 listeners nationwide were tuned in 1986. Here's one program (not sure if it is geoblocked, 4.15 should be where the code begins): http://yle.fi/elavaarkisto/artikkelit/silikoni_lahetti_radio... So I guess when people grow up with these things around...

I suspect that it's also somehow related to Finland being very good with open source projects. For example 1/2 of LAMP stack originating from Finland.

Superior education system that focuses on creativity and completely devoid of competition. I believe they are number one in world ranking in that regard. If you want to look at their methods, there's a book called Finish Lessons.

'According to the latest information, Softbank put in 80% of the funding, or $1.2 billion while GungHo put in the remaining $300 000.'

They are missing some zeros there.

Fixed now.

I think they need some big investors like this to keep going on. Hopefully they are allowed to work on projects they want in the future. We'll see

Actually it's quite a surprise to me. They are one of the most profitable entertainment companies ever. I'm not sure what they need the money for, they had hundreds of millions coming in each month from revenue on a team of under a 100 people.

Cash out before the crash out :)

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