Rovio has confirmed that negotiations are indeed underway with SEGA Sammy Holdings…

The Wall Street Journal first reported that SEGA is close to acquiring Rovio Entertainment. This Finnish studio is the creator of the Angry Birds series. According to sources familiar with the deal, the Japanese company could pay approximately $1 billion to acquire Rovio. SEGA could announce that they will obtain Rovio within days as long as the negotiations don’t fall through and are not taking too long; SEGA could reveal that they will get Rovio within days!

There used to be another company looking to buy Rovio: Playtika, an Israeli mobile developer (which creates casual slot, poker, and hidden object games) was looking at the Finnish company. In January, Playtika made its offer, and they would pay about $810 million for Rovio. So SEGA”s offer is roughly 20% higher. A few weeks later, Rovio said that the company’s board of directors was conducting a strategic review and would also enter into initial talks with, for example, Playtika. Still, by the end of March, Playtika had announced that negotiations with Rovio had failed and no deal had been reached.

Rovio announced in February that it would remove the Android version of Angry Birds from the Google Play Store while renaming its 2009 game on the Apple App Store because it believes that its other games are being adversely affected. Shawn Buckelew, the community manager for Angry Birds, said it on the game’s Discord. (The bottom line: they’re asking $1 for a game that doesn’t have microtransactions.) Rovio’s future could be at stake if interest in the company’s other games doesn’t increase.

Rovio confirmed that SEGA had entered into negotiations: “Rovio and Sega will release further information at an appropriate time. There is no certainty as to when the possible tender offer would take place or whether it would take place, nor as to the terms of such a potential tender offer.”

Source: VGC