Tencent to buy Clash of Clans maker Supercell for $8.6bn

Chinese games giant Tencent has just spent big to buy Clash of Clans developer Supercell.

The $8.6bn purchase was confirmed by the studio itself following a report by the Wall Street Journal. For that sum, the media giant will purchase a 84.3 per cent state in the Finnish developer.

The deal values Supercell at $10.2bn, and came about after investor SoftBank announced its intention to sell its shares in company. SoftBank owned 73.2 per cent of Supercell.

This sale was rumoured earlier in the year, with SoftBank talking to ‘potential strategic buyers based in China’.Sound familiar?

The Wall Street Journal says the deal will close in the third quarter.

In a post on Supercell’s website, CEO Ilkka Paananen detailed what this deal means for the Clash of Clans developer.

First up, the Tencent and SuperCell will be operationally independent so that the latter can remain creative.

Secondly, Supercell believes it will reach a larger audience with Tencent’s 1bn-person user base. 300m unique users are playing games on the company’s platforms, too.

It also seems that Supercell may be working on something with Riot Games, also owned by Tencent.

And finally, Paananen says that this deal keeps Supercell privately held.

If the name Tencent sounds familiar, that’s because the Chinese giant has stakes in Activision Blizzard, Epic Games, Riot Games, Robot Entertainment as well as Gluand Paradox Interactive.

Supercell isn’t the only mobile company to see a billion-dollar purchase recently. At the end of 2015, Activision Blizzard announced it was going to be puchasing Candy Crush maker King for $5.9bn.