Eurazeo is Seeking a Buyer for Asmodee
The French private equity firm has put a lot of capital into building Asmodee into a big player in the tabletop industry, and now it’s looking for a return on that investment – to the tune of $1.7 billion.
Eurazeo bought Asmodee in 2013, it was a mid-sized French game publisher at the time, for €143 million. Since then the company has been buying up smaller publishers – Mayfair, Fantasy Flight, Days of Wonder, F2Z Entertainment, and others – to add to its offerings. The aggressiveness of these buyouts is seen by some in the hobby as detrimental to the industry due to the company’s adherence to MAP and other policy choices that have been seen as not friendly to the community they make products for.
The firm currently has a 59.8% stake in Asmodee.
Asmodee Group, the French maker of board game Catan and distributor of Pokemon cards in parts of Europe, is exploring a sale that could value it at more than 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion), according to people familiar with the matter.
The Guyancourt, France-based company, owned by private equity firm Eurazeo SE (EURA.PA), has hired investment bankers to run a sale process, said the sources, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are confidential.
The company generates about 100 million euros in 12-month earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, according to one of the sources.
A sale is a bit odd for Eurazeo. The firm tends to pump a lot of venture capital funds into a company then offers it as an IPO. No word on what has led to them to choose this route over going public. Reuters was unable to get a comment from either Eurazeo or Asmodee.
