Overview
- TruFin has agreed to sell an 84.5% stake in UK publisher Playstack to VantageCo for about £112.4 million, a deal reported on Friday that implies a roughly £125 million valuation for the company.
- VantageCo is a newly formed, wholly owned subsidiary of Integrated Media Company (IMC), which is itself owned by investment firm TPG and operates consumer entertainment brands such as Fandom and GameSpot.
- The transaction is conditional on TruFin shareholder approval and other standard closing steps, with the parties expecting to complete the deal on June 10 and two major TruFin investors holding 44.29% of shares having already backed the sale.
- TruFin would owe VantageCo a £5.2 million break fee if the sale fails, and Playstack’s CEO Harvey Elliot said the deal is a change of ownership rather than a change to the team’s strategy or day-to-day operations.
- Playstack has published more than 20 titles and earlier reported an over 85% 'hit ratio', more than $100 million gross on Steam and over 20 million downloads last fiscal year, and the acquisition ties a commercially strong indie publisher into IMC’s wider distribution and marketing network which could reshape how its games are promoted.