Digital Bros complete their acquisition of Starbreeze

Digital Bros, the parent company of 505 Games, has completed their acquisition of Starbreeze Studios. The company finalized the acquisition of all Starbreeze assets from Smilegate Holdings for €19.2 million (£16.2 million).

The deal was originally announced in January 2020, and has been settled with the result of 505 Games purchasing the required assets from Smilegate Holdings, a South Korean developer and publisher. A press statement issued on the deal shows that the approximate value of the assets overall was €36.7 million (£31.1 million).

As a result of the acquisition, Digital Bros now owns 28.01 percent of Starbreeze AB’s share capital. This entitles the company to 29.93 percent of voting rights over Starbreeze, which is an estimation based on the number of shares remaining and communicated voting rights as of February 19, 2020.

In January Digital Bros described the deal as a way to exert greater control over the corporate strategic direction of Starbreeze AB moving forward.

In November 2019 Starbreeze, developers of Payday 2, submitted an administrator-approved plan to the Stockholm District Council. This will allow the company to pay their debts following a report of earnings before interest, tax, monetization, and administration (EBITDA) loss of SEK 25.8 million ($2.7 million).

The company’s reconstruction process, which is a process afforded to Swedish companies facing insolvency, was completed in December 2019.

Starbreeze has expressed intent to repay the debts they’ve accrued since December 2018 within five years, with an interest rate of 5 percent. The current plan sees Starbreeze repay their creditors across two distinct categories, supplier creditors and minor supplier creditors.

Supplier creditors are owed SEK 1.04 million ($107,000), while minor supplier creditors are owed much less than that.

Payday 2 is a continued focus for Starbreeze, in fact they’ve been selling off the rights and publishing rights to many other IPs. The company believes that Payday 3 will be their saving grace, the game that will see them become profitable once more. Given the success of Payday 2, there’s every chance that this will happen, but the game will need to be released soon and match up with the demands of gamers today.