Yesterday, Stephen Buonocore, podcaster and veteran of the gaming industry, ha tweeted a news that surprised many: apparently the current ownership of the group Asmodee, the second largest manufacturing company of table games worldwide, it is looking for buyers for sale.
The potential sale should be finalized for a figure that is around 2 billion euros!
For now, this is just news reported by an industry insider, and neither Asmodee nor potential buyers have commented on the story.
Asmodee is on sale for no less than 2 billion euros
Asmodee’s current ownership is PAI Partners, an investment fund that is reported to have assets totaling € 13.5 billion. The Asmodee group therefore represents a substantial part of its properties but, at least as reported, the ownership could soon change hands. The potential buyer would be Goldman Sachs, one of the world’s leading investment banks.
BREAKING NEWS;
Asmodee being sold by PAI Partners (the current VC Fund that owns them) for a reported 2 BILLION EURO.
Goldman Sachs (largest Investment bank on the planet) has been engaged to make this sale.
WOW!
– Stephen M. Buonocore (@PodfatherGaming) September 23, 2021
Even more interesting than the figure we are currently talking about is going to see the history of the past acquisitions of Asmodee, which has changed three properties in the last 7 years. In 2014 it was purchased by Eurazeo for 145 million euros, which then sold it to the PAI fund in 2018 for around 1.2 billion euros. It is not necessary to calculate growth percentages to realize how, in recent years, the value of the group has had a prodigious growth. If the sale we are currently talking about were confirmed at the reported figures, it would be a almost 14 times the value of 7 years ago.
What would it change for ordinary players if Asmodee was transferred to another property? Probably nothing in the short term, and little in the medium to long term. Such growth indicates that the company’s current modus operandi is close to optimal (at least from an investor’s point of view), and a winning team does not change.
Asmodee owns numerous companies in the world of board games, with most of the acquisitions taking place in recent times. Among them are for example Z-Man Studio (Pandemic), Fantasy Flight Games (Journeys in Middle-earth), CATAN Studios (publisher of the homonymous series), Days of Wonder (Ticket to Ride) and the online platform BoardGameArena.
