Blog: acquisition

Take-Two Interactive announced an acquisition deal to buy Zynga (pending a 45-day shopping window for Zynga) for $12.7billion. The deal Who got a great deal? It depends on who you ask. It worked out well for the founder and early backers in the end , while those who bought into the company on the day of its IPO will still be coming out short, as the final price point is still less than at the IPO ten years ago.

Digital-first life has broken down cultural borders, allowing content and fans from all over the world to spread far and wide on both a niche and mainstream level. It is now possible for small independent artists to have substantial yet geographically disparate global fanbases, and for mainstream artists with global name recognition to have only small cores of dedicated fans.

Epic Games announced it is acquiring Harmonix, the maker of Rock Band. While this makes sense for the Fortnite maker and its entertainment metaverse, it has the risk of diluting the potential music expertise that labels and other music companies could (and should) offer to games partners.

The market disconnect between the proliferation of independent content creators and the consolidation of brand IP into the hands of ever-fewer major players is growing increasingly stark. On the one hand, independent artists are the fastest-growing sector of the music market.

Epic Games embarked on the journey of attracting third-party developers a while ago , but it has now made a significant step towards building up a go-to marketplace and distribution centre for designers and creators of digital art and in-game items.

In November 2020, we wrote the below in our annual predictions report . “Upping gaming experiences via ‘infrastructural acquisitions’: As non-gaming entertainment increasingly embeds in games, companies will look to upgrade their ecosystems to cater beyond consumers’ gaming needs and instead focus across their entire digital entertainment and social lives.

With the acquisition of ZeniMax Media, Microsoft is gaining an important content asset for its portfolio – Bethesda’s games. And while the timing of the announcement certainly won’t make Sony too happy as it is about to launch PS5, the key benefits of this acquisition are tied to the future of Xbox Game Pass, rather than to who will sell more consoles this holiday season.

FuboTV, the US over-the-top (OTT) internet-delivered TV service launched back in January 2015 as a soccer-centric proposition. In that time it has established itself as a niche distributor of live streams of MLS and LatAm soccer matches to US, Canadian and Spanish audiences.

Last week, Disney-owned ESPN acquired the exclusive rights to show the UFC tournament in the US for $1.5 billion over five years. The deal will see the UFC earn $184 million more each year than the previous deal with Fox, which begs the question; is the UFC mimicking Fox’s strategy and cashing in on its content? While Endeavor (formerly WME-IMG), which purchased the UFC for $4 billion in 2016, was seeking in the region of $450 million per year, UFC president Dana White is ecstatic with the new deal, telling MMAJunkie: “Our last deal was $116 million a year.

In the hours following the announcement of Amazon’s $13.7 billion acquisition of American supermarket chain Whole Foods, much of the immediate attention is currently focused on how the e-commerce giant will disrupt the food and grocery brick-and-mortar retail experience.

After a quiet period in which music and media assets in general were perceived to be in irreversible decline, the narrative is suddenly changing. The boost in revenue from streaming and the allure of consistent income that comes with the transition to recurring subscription revenue seems to have provided new impetus to the investment landscape around music-focused media.