Aristocrat Leisure Ltd has completed its US$990 million acquisition of social gaming company Big Fish Games.
In a filing to the Australian Securities Exchange, Aristocrat said that all conditions and requirements for the acquisition have now been fulfilled with CEO and Managing Director Trevor Croker stating, “the strategic and financial benefits of the acquisition are highly compelling. Big Fish will immediately provide scale across our entire digital platform and our social casino business will become the second largest social casino publisher globally.
“Big Fish’s digital-first social casino content and industry leading meta-game capability and applications are highly complementary to Aristocrat’s existing and industry-leading land-based digital content business.”
Big Fish, previously a subsidiary of Churchill Downs Incorporated, is a global publisher of free-to-play games that operates across three key business lines focused on specific game segments, including Social Casino, Social Gaming and Premium Paid games.
Big Fish is headquartered in Seattle, USA, has approximately 700 full-time employees and five in-house development studios in Seattle and Oakland, USA.
The company’s largest social casino application “Big Fish Casino” is a top ranking social casino application globally with industry leading user monetization levels. Big Fish’s social gaming titles “Gummy Drop!” and “Fairway Solitaire” are also the number 10 and number six games in the casual and card game categories respectively.
Big Fish reported adjusted revenue of US$458 million and Adjusted EBITDA of US$83 million for the 12 months to 30 September 2017.
