For several years it seemed like Embracer was buying spectacular IPs, developers, publishers and other types of assets on a monthly basis. But last year it stopped when the money ran out, leading to a heavily criticized restructuring program with a flood of layoffs, closed developers, shut down games and divestments.
Just yesterday it was confirmed that Embracer has now also sold off Borderlands developer Gearbox, and in connection with this CEO Lars Wingefors had a financial meeting with his investors, where he explained that the restructuring is now over. He was then asked if they will start buying new studios and publishers again, something he did not rule out, but answered that it is not time for that yet:
"Looking to do more [mergers and acquisitions] deals - I think it's way too early to start talking about restarting the M&A engines again."
He then went on to explain that Embracer will now work on making the whole organization work better, and above all release better games:
"Now we are in the late phases of the consideration into the future of the group, and that's our highest focus and priority - how we set up ourselves and structure ourselves, and utilise our assets we have within the group, and have them work together, and how we leverage them better working together, utilising different functions, I think that's our focus right now, to increase profitability and cashflow generation, by simply making better products and games."
What do you think about this? Do you expect that they will start buying new assets when the economy points in the right direction again?
Thanks Rock Paper Shotgun