American multinational private equity, alternative asset management, and financial services firm The Blackstone Group LP is preparing to acquire a Ukrainian-American developer and publisher of online games and social casinos Murka Ltd and Murka Entertainment Ltd. The Blackstone Group informed about their intention the Commission for the Protection of Competition of the Republic of Cyprus on March 8, 2019. According to the source of AIN.UA, the deal has already been confirmed. Murka has not yet commented on this.
Murka
Murka was established in 2011 and is known for such social casino brands as Slots Journey, Slots Journey 2, TX Poker, S&H Casino, Vegas Slots, Royal Fortune Slots, Bubbla Cadabra, Scatter Slots and others.
The key feature of the social casino genre is its legality – one cannot convert their winnings into real currency. Such games are available in mobile app stores and on Facebook. The publisher of social casino games profits from in-game content and/or on ad impressions. According to various sources in 2018 publishers on the global market of social casino games raised somewhere between $3.2 billion to $3.46 billion only from mobile platforms.
Terms of the deal
The notice of Blackstone Group says that a shell company Tribe Cyprus Bidco Ltd will be established to support the deal.
Presently, Kyiv, Dnipro, and Lviv offices of Murka employ over 100 employees. The terms of the upcoming deal have not yet been commented on by the company. One of the principal investors of the company is an international asset management firm Noosphere founded by Max Polyakov.
Previously we informed about the acquisition of an Israeli developer and publisher of social casino games with offices in Ukraine Playtika by a Chinese consortium for $4.4 billion.
