17th Dec 2019 09:27
(Alliance News) - Keywords Studios PLC on Tuesday said it has made three acquisitions for about GBP9 million in total to be the "go to" technical and creative services platform for the global video games industry.
The Dublin-headquartered IT services firm said it bought developer of automated translation technology Xcelerator Machine Translations Ltd, also known as Kantan. The acquired company employs nine people and for the year to the end of March generated revenue of EUR800,000.
Keywords said it is paying an initial consideration of EUR3.5 million in cash to the founder of Kantan, Tony O'Dowd, and investors, Delta Partners and Enterprise Ireland. In addition, Keywords will issue 38,699 new shares to O'Dowd within 18 months from completion of the acquisition.
The remaining EUR2.9 million consideration will become payable to O'Dowd, in a mix of cash and shares, based upon performance targets for Kantan for the three years post completion.
Keywords also purchased London-based Ichi Holdings Ltd - which provides creative and marketing services to video game publishers - for GBP3.2 million. For the 12 months to the end of June, Ichi generated revenue of GBP2.9 million and pretax profit of GBP600,000.
Under the terms, Keywords said it is paying an initial consideration of GBP2.2 million in cash and 70,247 new shares, which will be issued within 18 months of completion.
Finally, Keywords said it acquired the assets of audio recording and casting services provider 9145-9115 Inc, or Syllabes, for a total potential cash consideration of up to CAD475,000, about GBP272,792. The acquired firm has five full-time staff and generates CAD700,000 in revenue per year.
An initial cash consideration of up to CAD325,000 will be paid to founder and seller, Nicolas Charbonneaux, Keywords said, with deferred consideration of up to CAD150,000 payable, subject to agreed targets being delivered over the 12 months from completion.
"We are delighted to have made three high-calibre acquisitions," said Keywords Chief Executive Andrew Day.
He added: "We look forward to working with the highly experienced and creative teams at Kantan, Ichi and Syllabes, to support their growth as part of the Keywords family as they, in turn, help us to build further upon our reputation as the leading provider of highly specialised video games services around the world."
Keywords shares were down 2.3% in London on Tuesday morning at 1,405.00 pence each.
By Evelina Grecenko; [email protected]
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