September 23, 2021 – Publisher Asmodee Tries To Sell For 2 Billion Euros. In a tweet by legendary board game personality Stephen M. Buonocore, and backed up by French finance publications, it has been revealed that the board game giant has engaged the largest investment bank in the world to try and sell them for a whopping 2 billion Euros.
That’s right, this is just an exploration of a sale, no one has bought them yet. And all in all, they have pretty much always been for sale and constantly switching hands from one venture fund to the next. PAI Partners, the current owner, bought it a few years back for some 1.2 billion euros.
SEE ALSO: Stephen Buonocore to Step Down as President of Stronghold Games
So why is this news? Asmodee trying to sell their large holdings in board game creation, publication and distribution is big news because they have been on a massive buying spree and control more of the board game industry than ever before.
ASMODEE HAS DONE BIG BUSINESS
Most notably is their February acquisition of Board Game Arena. The world has been shifting more online and especially with the COVID pandemic, this has most certainly included board games. Board Game Arena is one of the top platforms to play online, among others like Tabletopia or Tabletop Simulator. Now that they have the pipeline to their deep catalog, with games like Splendor which was made available, they are in a great position to take great market share in that growing space.
Not just that, they picked up a few major publishers lately including the publisher of Azul, Plan B Games and the publisher of Dixit, Libellud. This adds major IP holders to their already huge list of publishers that include Days of Wonder, Fantasy Flight Games, Z-Man Games, Plaid Hat Games and Catan Studios.
Besides the major IP and distribution that come with all the publishing powerhouses, they have been off making some other big deals. In the fall of 2019 they launched a miniatures studio, Atomic Mass Games, with a partnership from Marvel. They have also gotten into books and even apparel.
VENTURE FUND OWNERSHIP HISTORY SPECIFICS
Besides the tweet from Buonocore that put the news on everyone’s radar, there was also information across various French finance sites, mostly behind paywalls, that also speak to this information. Gus & Co reported the news. According to them, it is the AGEFI this Monday, September 20, 2021, the Economic and Financial Agency, the media group specializing in finance, which announced the information on Monday, September 20, then relayed by the very serious financial site Unquote.
PAI Partners, formerly Paribas Affaires Industrielles, is a French investment fund that manages a portfolio of holdings, including Asmodee. They bought it in 2018 for 1.2 billion euros from Eurazeo, another investment fund, which had bought Asmodee in 2014 for around 143 million euros.
In short, Asmodee has become a bit of the hot potato that the funds pass from hand to hand, the ball that we pass, with, in passing, each time a nice revaluation . 800 million over 3 years, here, as part of Asmodee.
WHO SHOULD BUY ASMODEE?
This is our personal, speculative opinion, but Disney or Netflix should buy them. The streamers all need content and what better untapped source of TV shows, scripted and unscripted, than board games. Considering financial institution Intuit just announced they were going to pick up Mailchimp for a cool 12 Billion, what is a few billion for some fantastic content. You know you would watch a Catan or a Carcassonne TV show.
