Aristocrat subsidiary Pixel United is selling its mobile gaming company Plarium Global to Modern Times Group (MTG) for $820 million, plus cash considerations.
Modern Times Group is a Stockholm-based gaming and esports company. MTG will pay $620 million for Plarium Global. An additional $200 million could be paid based on Plarium’s performance from 2025 to 2028.
The sale is part of Aristocrat’s second plan, scheduled for 2024 in May, which was aimed at focusing the company on its core businesses: land-based gaming, social casino gaming offerings, and real-money gaming.
Aristocrat acquired Plarium in October 2017. The company develops mobile and PC games Vikings: War of Clans and has over 500 million users worldwide. The third quarter 2024 results (not yet audited) show that Plarium brought in $615 million in revenue and $110 million in EBITA for Aristocrat.
“Aristocrat has incorporated a range of Plarium’s strategic capabilities and mobile content know-how into its core gaming operations over the past seven years, benefitting from digital marketing and UA management capability, enhanced live operations, and scaling and growing our combined social casino business,” said Aristocrat CEO and managing director Trevor Croker.
“Our ownership of Plarium has helped to drive Aristocrat’s digital transformation, extending our track record of successfully acquiring businesses to accelerate our strategy.”
In a year of operational change for the Australian company, perhaps the biggest was the launch of its interactive business segment in June.
Aristocrat Interactive brings together the company’s various online gaming brands under one roof, including Anaxi, NeoGames, Aspire Global, BtoBet and Pariplay. It serves as a one-stop shop for content, proprietary technology and solutions for iLottery and iGaming, with five go-to-market businesses: iLottery, Content & Aggregation, Gaming Systems, iGaming & Sports and iGaming White-Label.
“With the expanded Aristocrat Interactive business now sitting alongside Aristocrat Gaming and our market-leading mobile social casino business, we are increasingly focused on opportunities to lean into Aristocrat’s strengths in regulated gaming content and social slots,” Croker added.
Aristocrat intends to use the proceeds from the sale of Plarium, which is expected to close in the first half of 2025, for capital allocation, supporting its long-term strategy in the regulated gaming and digital casino spaces. The deal is expected to reduce net income after tax, depreciation and amortization by a single-digit percentage.
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