Embracer CEO: It’s ‘Too Early’ to Start Acquiring Studios Again
by
William D’Angelo
, posted 4 hours ago / 576 Views
Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors during an investor call attended by Rock Paper Shotgun was asked if the company had plans to start acquiring studios again.
Wingefors said it is “way too early” to start thinking about acquiring studios again.
“Looking to do more [mergers and acquisitions] deals – I think it’s way too early to start talking about restarting the M&A engines again,” said Wingefors.
“Now we are in the late phases of the consideration into the future of the group, and that’s our highest focus and priority – how we set up ourselves and structure ourselves, and utilise our assets we have within the group, and have them work together, and how we leverage them better working together, utilising different functions, I think that’s our focus right now, to increase profitability and cashflow generation, by simply making better products and games.”
Wingefors added that with the sale of Gearbox they are “ending the restructuring programme now.”
“Now we are getting approached, I would say not quite daily, but on a weekly basis, by companies that would like to acquire certain assets within the group,” he said. “And I’ve been very clear that they’re not for sale, because they’re a very important part for the group and for the shareholders of the group going forward.”
Embracer has recently shut down Saints Row developer Volition and TimeSplitters developer Free Radical, as well as spinning off publisher Saber Interactive and laying off hundreds of workers.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D’Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.