Nazara invests in Sportskeeda and Qunami, ups stake in Halaplay
Online game publisher Nazara Technologies Limited is reportedly on the verge of closing a Rs. 36 crore deal to gain majority stake in Absolute Sports Private Limited, the parent company of leading online sports content and news website Sportskeeda.
According to an exclusive report on online news portal Inc42, Nazara is proposing to acquire 118,000 equity shares of Absolute Sports in a cash plus stock deal.
For the acquisition, Nazara is paying an issue price of Rs. 10 to purchase shares from existing investors, promoters and key managerial personnel and is additionally also offering the existing shareholders of the company a total of 491,100 shares of Nazara Technologies at a premium of Rs. 724 per share.
According to the Inc42 report, Nazara is further planning to purchase equity shares worth Rs. 7.09 crores in Sports Unity Private Limited, the company that operates the real money quiz app Qunami.
The deal is proposed to be an all stock deal with Nazara allotting 34,900 shares to non banking financial company, Azimuth Investments, which had given a Rs. 6.25 crore loan to Sports Unity, apparently to convert Sports Unity’s debt into equity.
According to the regulatory filings to the Registrar of Companies (ROC) cited by Inc42, Nazara is also looking to increase its stake in fantasy sports HalaPlay to 52.53% by acquiring Kae Capital and Kalysta Capital Fund’s stake in the company in a share swap deal.
In exchange of Kae Capital and Kalysta Fund’s 26,080 shares in Halaplay, they are being offered 315,900 shares of Nazara Technologies, which will take their combined holding in the gaming publisher to 1.14%.
Earlier this year, Nazara had participated in a Rs. 40 crore Series A investment round in Halaplay, along with gaming and hospitality company Delta Corp. Delta Corp had also divested its fantasy sports portal LeagueAdda and transferred it to Halaplay as part of the deal.
In the past couple of years, Nazara has aggressively invested in real money as well as social gaming startups including CrimzonCode, Kenyan real-money betting company NZ World Kenya Ltd, NextWave Multimedia, MasterMind Sports, Truly Social, NODWIN Gaming and Moong Labs.
Nazara has also indicated its interest in either starting or acquiring online poker, rummy and other real money skill games in India.
