Aristocrat buys Big Fish Games for $990m
Australian provider says the acquisition, combined with its Product Madness business, makes it the second largest social casino firm in the world
Aristocrat has purchased social games business Big Fish Games from Churchill Downs for $990m in cash.
The acquisition price implies a multiple of 11.9x adjusted EBITDA, and represents a hefty premium on the $885m paid by Churchill for Big Fish in 2014.
Aristocrat said it will run Big Fish as a standalone business alongside Product Madness and Plarium, minimising scope for disruption to its existing businesses.
“The strategic and financial benefits from the acquisition are highly compelling,” said Aristocrat CEO Trevor Croker.
“The acquisition of Big Fish will immediately provide scale across our entire Digital platform, following the recent acquisition of Plarium, which expanded our Digital business into the fast growing social gaming market.
Big Fish operates across three key business lines including Social Casino, Social Gaming and Premium Paid games.
The developer is headquartered in Seattle, has approximately 700 full-time employees and five in-house development studios in Seattle and Oakland.
Its Big Fish Casino is a top ranking social casino app globally, while its social gaming titles, Gummy Drop! and Fairway Solitaire, are ranked the number 10 and number six games in the casual and card game categories, respectively.
Aristocrat said its social casino business would immediately become the second largest in the world, with revenues increasing from $290m to $486m for the year ended 30 September.
“Big Fish’s digital-first social casino content and industry-leading meta-game capability and applications are highly complementary to Aristocrat’s existing and industry-leading land based digital content business,” Croker said.
“The acquisition of Big Fish will also materially expand our social gaming footprint, positioning Aristocrat to further capitalise on growth in mobile gaming following the acquisition of Plarium.
“Big Fish’s strength in casual and card games is highly complementary to Plarium’s strategy games portfolio.”
The transaction is expected to complete in the first quarter of calendar year 2018.