Tencent Acquires Sumo Group for $1.27B

Tencent continues to expand as a global force in video games, acquiring British company Sumo Group for $1.27 billion.

Tencent already owned 8.75% of Sumo Group, and the sale price represents a 43% markup on the company’s market value last Friday. Its stock price rocketed up by that same percentage after the deal was announced. 

Sumo Digital, the company’s core studio, worked with Sony on its Playstation 5 launch title “Sackboy: A Big Adventure” and with Microsoft on “Crackdown 3.”

With a market cap of $680 billion, Tencent is aggressively extending its reach across industries.

• In June, Tencent took a majority stake in Berlin-based gamemaker Yager. 
• The company invested in 62 gaming companies in the first half of this year.
• Last week, it received the blessing of Chinese regulators to fully acquire the search engine Sogou, a competitor to China’s top search company Baidu. 

However, Tencent’s expansion hit a roadblock when its planned $5.3 billion merger of China’s top two video game streaming sites, Huya and DouYu, was blocked by Chinese regulators. It owns around one-third of each company.