Sega to acquire Rovio in deal worth 706 million Euro

Sega has officially announced that it will acquire Rovio, makers of the Angry Birds franchise and other mobile games. The deal, which was confirmed by a press release, will close for about 706 million Euro (or about $776 million USD). At the moment the deal hasn't completely closed, but Rovio's board of directors supports the offer, and it's expected to push through in the second quarter of the current financial year.

Sega will carry out the acquisition of Finland-based Rovio through Sega Europe, which is based in the UK. According to the press release, Sega's motivation for the deal is in using Rovio's expertise in "creating new ecosystems". The release likens the acquisitions to its 2005 purchase of Total War series developer The Creative Assembly and its 2013 pickup of Persona and Shin Megami Tensei publisher Atlus. In both cases, the acquired studios "all greatly expanded [Sega's] scale while also releasing many new titles across the globe."

In Rovio's case, the new ecosystems are in mobile gaming. Sega plans to use Rovio's capabilities at developing and operating live mobile games to accelerate the development of "mobile-compatible and multi-platform-supported versions of Sega's existing game IPs." 

The companies didn't announce any specific projects immediately, but one might expect further moves by Sega to bring its IPs to more mobile games in the near future. Sega similarly promised to support Rovio's aims to expand its platform outside mobile gaming.