GungHo Online Entertainment (3765) had a busy day today in Japan.
Apart from setting up a new Singapore subsidiary, the Puzzle & Dragons company also sold GGF B.V., a wholly owned holding company based in the Netherlands, to its parent company SoftBank (9984).
GGF B.V. was specifically established last year in March to acquire 51% of Supercell together with SoftBank (more on that below).
According to GungHo, the deal is worth US$344 million and will lead to an un extraordinary profit of US$73 million for the current fiscal year (which ends for GungHo in December 2014).
The background of the deal is a bit complicated to explain:
After agreeing to buy Supercell in principle, SoftBank and its subsidiary GungHo established “Kahon 3 Oy”, a so-called special-purpose company in Finland last year.
SoftBank invested US$1.2 billion (80% of the total), while GungHo contributed US$306 million (20%) to Kahon 3. This new company was then used to acquire 51% of Supercell for US$1.53 billion in October 2013.
In addition, GGF B.V. was established in North Holland with 1 Euro capital as a wholly owned subsidiary of GungHo to acquire the Kahon 3 Oy shares.
Following the purchase, Supercell became a subsidiary of SoftBank in Finland.
The Puzzle & Dragons maker says the motivation for the sale is to focus more on emerging markets and Asia going forward.
