Tencent to buy British video game company Sumo in $1.3b deal

Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings will buy video game company Sumo Group in a deal that values the British firm at 919 million pounds ($1.27 billion), the companies said on Monday.

Sumo's shareholders will get 513 pence in cash per share, Tencent said. The offer is at 43 per cent premium to the Sumo's last closing price of 358 pence. The share has risen multifold since its listing on LSE's junior market AIM in 2017 at 100 pence.

Tencent has an 8.75 per cent stake and is the second-biggest stakeholder in the company, which has 14 studios in five countries with more than 1,200 employees.

"The Board of Sumo firmly believes the business will benefit from Tencent's broad videogaming eco-system, proven industry expertise and its strategic resources," Sumo's non-executive chairman Ian Livingstone said.