Tencent, the Chinese conglomerate that has its hands in many different industries, may soon be acquiring another company. Its latest buyout target is Leyou, the parent company behind video game studios such asWarframe’sDigital Extremes andGears Tactics’Splash Damage.
A few days ago on July 10, Leyou released a document announcing a halt in stock trading “pending the release of an announcement pursuant to the Hong Kong Code on Takeovers and Mergers which constitutes inside information of the Company.” At the time, the company was getting purchase offers from Zhejiang Century Huatong Group, Tencent subsidiary iDreamSky, and Sony, whichlooked poised to be the one to buy Leyou.
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However, according to GameSpot, a new statement from the Leyou board confirms that it’s entering into an agreement with Tencent, which already owns majority shares in studios such asLeague of Legends’Riot Games. The announcement by Leyou’s board says that “on 31 May 2025 (before trading hours), Mr. Yuk and the Company entered into an exclusivity agreement (the ‘Privatization Exclusivity Agreement’) with Tencent Mobility Limited (the ‘Potential Acquiror’), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tencent Holdings Limited.” The agreement doesn’t mean the buyout is certain, but if Leyou does sell in the next three months, the buyer is all but guaranteed to be Tencent.
In addition to Digital Extremes and Splash Damage, Leyou owns its own publishing label known as Athlon Games. This publishing label has published games in theSamurai Showdownseries and is partnered with LCG Entertainment, which has revived some of Telltale’s games licenses afterthe original Telltale went under. Athlon has also been working with Amazon to create a newLord of the RingsMMO. All of these projects look to be attractive targets for a company like Tencent.
Tencent has plenty of other projects under its belt. The conglomerate has investments in many companies, including Ubisoft, Riot, Activision, and many more. It’s also launched a California-based studio of its own called LightSpeed LA. As for game development, Tencent is making an open-world first-person-shooter codenamedSYNand is developingPokemon Unite, a MOBA game expected to release on the Nintendo Switch and mobile.
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