Join our daily newsletter At The Bell to receive exclusive market insights
- Animoca Brands Corporation (AB1) is set to acquire all issued capital in American games developer nWay
- The company’s subsidiary, Animoca Brands Limited, will purchase all nWay shares for a cash consideration of $11.4 million
- nWay is a San Fransisco-based developer of popular multiplayer games in the likes of POWER RANGERS: Legacy Wars, POWER RANGERS: Battle for the Grid, and ChronoBlade
- Animoca’s share price is steady today with shares trading for 18 cents apiece
Animoca Brands Corporation (AB1) has entered a non-binding memorandum of understanding to acquire 100 per cent of issued capital in nWay.
This memorandum of understanding will be entered into via Animoca’s wholly owned subsidiary, Animoca Brands Limited.
The shares will be purchased for a cash consideration of US$7.69 million (AUD$11.4 million).
nWay is a San Fransisco based developer and publisher of competitive multiplayer games across consoles, PCs and mobiles.
It has a strong track record of developing high-quality, fast-action multiplayer games such as POWER RANGERS: Battle for the Grid, POWER RANGERS: Legacy Wars, and ChronoBlade.
A total of US$1.84 million (AUD$2.9 million) is payable in cash and US$5.75 million (AUD$8.5 million) is payable in fully paid ordinary shares of Animoca Brands.
The cash consideration of US$1.94 million includes US$250,000 (AUD$369,000) to nWay and a US$1.69 million (AUD$2.5 million) cash investment into nWay for operating purposes.
The price per share of any news shares of Animoca Brands will be based on the higher of $0.18 or the 30-day volume weighted average price as of today’s date.
However, this is subject to shareholder approval, execution of a formal agreement, satisfactory completion of due diligence and the obtaining of any necessary regulatory approvals.
“The acquisition of nWay is a historic day for Animoca Brands, not only are we acquiring a company with experienced management, strong revenues, and successful branded games, but we are also immensely excited about the new nWayPlay platform,” Yat Siu, co-founder and chairman of Animoca Brands stated.
nWay has a global licence, granted by Lionsgate and Hasbro, to make use of the Power Rangers brand to develop and publish both Power Rangers games on mobile, consoles, PC, and Smart TV platforms.
The licence expires on the earlier of the third anniversary since launch of the branded product or September 20, 2020 with automatic renewal for one year based on revenue benchmarks.
After this period, the renewal term can be further extended by up to another three one-year periods on a rolling basis upon mutual agreement by both parties in writing.
nWay has also recently announced nWayPlay, a platform currently in development that provides developers with complete backend and fully managed live-ops services to develop and operate competitive multiplayer cross-platform games.
It also provides a unified player identity and friends system which enables players to log-in, connect and play together with friends across different platforms such as consoles, PC, and mobile.
nWayPlay is currently only available for alpha partners and is expected to launch in 2020. It will charge service fees based on clients’ monthly active users.
“Animoca Brands is the perfect strategic partner for nWay, as the company brings a deep history of innovation, talent and IPs which can help further the main goal of nWay – to create amazing games that are enjoyed by fans around the world,” Taehoon Kim, CEO and co-founder of nWay said.
Animoca’s share price is steady today with shares trading for 18 cents apiece in a $168.1 million market cap.
