Rovio, the Finnish company behind the addictive smartphone game Angry Birds, is planning to go public “as early as next month”, as reported by Bloomberg.
If confirmed, this IPO could site the company at $2 billion, and potentially raise $14 million from a local market listing.
Since the initial release of Angry Birds in 2009, Rovio’s business expanded to other games and even movies once it was realized that they could not solely rely on the game for revenue. The Angry Birds Movie was released in 2016 and managed to boost game sales 34 per cent to 190.3 million euros with earnings of 17.5 million. In contrast, last year Rovio posted a loss.
Then, back in June, there was news that China’s Tencent Holdings was considering a $3 billion purchase of Rovio and that the company would be going public in the future. At the time, the company commented “A stock exchange listing at some point in the future could be possible in order to support the continued strong growth of Rovio and its strategic targets.”
