MTG Ups Stake in Online Games Developer InnoGames

MTG has increased its ownership in InnoGames, which develops browser and mobile games, to 51 percent.

MTG made its initial 21-percent investment in InnoGames—the creator of six successful online games, including Forge of Empires, Tribal Wars and Elvenar—in October 2016. MTG has invested 82.6 million euros ($90.2 million) for the additional shares, based on the enterprise value of 260 million euros ($284 million) for 100 percent of the business.

Jørgen Madsen Lindemann, MTG’s president and CEO, said: “Revenues in the global gaming industry are expected to reach $113 billion by 2018, and mobile and PC games represent 45 percent of this and are the fastest growing segment. InnoGames is a great business with great products, and is already performing above our expectations when we made our original investment. We have gotten to know the talented InnoGames team very well over the past six months and are impressed with the strategy, culture, performance and management of the business.”

Hendrik Klindworth, InnoGames’ CEO, added: “The next chapter of the InnoGames story starts today. We established InnoGames to make great games that people want to play for decades, and we have already created six games played by millions of gamers every single day. With MTG on board, we will keep our entrepreneurial spirit and unique culture, while bringing our new games to an even bigger global audience.”

Arnd Benninghoff, MTG’s executive VP and MTGx’s CEO, commented: “Gaming will become an increasingly important area for us as it is one of the fastest growing forms of digital entertainment and complements our eSports and MPN businesses. InnoGames is the first step in the development of this third digital vertical for MTGx and is an excellent fit with our strategy to become a global digital entertainer. We look forward to building an even more successful company together.”