888 Holding plc (LSE:888) has acquired the Mytopia social games development studio from Real Dice Inc. for $18 million. Real Dice CEO Guy Ben-Artzi (30) is a nephew of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wife, Sarah.
888 will pay $12 million in cash when the deal is closed, and will make $6 million in additional cash milestone payments through the end of 2011. Additional payments up to up to $30 million will be subject to Mytopia's profits through 2011, capping the deal at $48 million.
Mytopia develops cross-platform social games, such as bingo and poker, for smartphones, mobile handsets and social networking platforms including Facebook. The applications can be used on for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and J2ME handsets. According to 888, Mytopia's poker game has been installed on more than one million handset globally, and its Bingo Island 2 is one of the top bingo applications on Facebook.
888 also acquired a software license for Mytopia's Particle Code, a cross-platform application development framework for mobile devices and tablets.
888 said that Mytopia will form the cornerstone of 888's social gaming and mobile strategy, offering a seamless experience across different platforms. Social network and smartphone gaming applications will also be offered to 888's Dragonfish B2B partners.
Mytopia had a pretax an un-audited pro-forma loss of $100,000 in 2009, and the assets acquired have no significant book value.
888 has not had an easy time of late, with poor financials, layoffs, the resignation of its B2B division manager and restructuring, sending the share down so far this year. The share price rose 1.5% by midday in London today to ₤0.50, giving a market cap of ₤174 million.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 14, 2010
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