$4.9-B Saudi Purchase Of Gaming Firm Perplexes Analyst

Saudi Arabia is defriending Uncle Sam on oil, while deploying its video-game war chest in his backyard, Oliver Taslic wrote for Reuters Breakingviews.

Photo Insert: Though privately held Scopely doesn’t disclose its financials, Savvy looks to be getting a good price.

Savvy Games, owned by the country’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), announced on Wednesday that it was buying US mobile games specialist Scopely for $4.9 billion. That’s nearly two-fifths of the $13 billion it set aside in September for such acquisitions.

Though privately held Scopely doesn’t disclose its financials, Savvy looks to be getting a good price.

The company projected it would make over $900 million in 2020, co-CEO Javier Ferreira told VentureBeat. Assume that figure grew 30% a year – a conservative estimate given its previous growth – and Savvy would be buying Scopely for around 3 times 2022 sales.

By contrast, Take-Two Interactive Software’s $13 billion swoop on mobile giant Zynga, announced read more last year, is equivalent to roughly 4.5 times the target’s annualized 2022 revenue.

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