Zynga ‘offered $1 billion for PopCap’

Zynga was willing to part with $1 billion to acquire the casual games giant PopCap, an alleged insider has said.

PopCap announced this week that it will consent to a buyout offer from Electronic Arts worth at least $750 million. However, the complex deal could become increasingly lucrative for PopCap, with $550 million in earn-out bonuses on offer.

The potential pay-out could increase to $1.3 billion.

The source, speaking to business publication Forbes, said Zynga “would have financed the deal at least in part with a line of credit supplied by Goldman Sachs”.

The report points out that as of March 31, according to Zynga’s public offering documents, the company had about $1 billion in cash on its balance sheet.

It is also believed “there was at least one other bidder for the company, possibly the China-based Internet company TenCent, but that final bidding came down to Zynga and EA”.