Playtika shares increased 18 per cent in valuation in premarket trading after private equity firm Joffre Capital acquired a 20 per cent controlling stake in the company at an $8.5 bil valuation, or $21 a share.
This represents a 46 per cent premium over trading prices on Monday June 27, and comes in the wake of an announcement in February that Playtika were considering a potential sale. This represents a 46 per cent premium on the company’s close price yesterday.
Playtika specializes in social casino games and first went public in January 2021, at $27 a share although recently, the Israeli developer’s shares closed at $14.53, but have been valued as low as $11.57 in the past 90 days.
Shares in the company have been falling since Q3 2021, with industry analyst Eric Seufert reporting a 25 per cent decrease.
Mobile gaming developer Playtika’s stock is down 25% today after missing analyst forecasts and cutting Q4 guidance. Playtika’s management had previously dismissed concerns about Apple’s ATT privacy policy pic.twitter.com/cGE2WfsGP4
— Eric Seufert (@eric_seufert) November 3, 2021
This decline has been attributed to Apple’s ATT, which has made user acquisition more difficult, and also affected the company’s re-engagement strategies.
“Playtika’s legacy catalog of social casino games features a deep well of dormant players; Playtika is generally seen as one of the industry’s leading performance marketing operators and has highlighted the prominent role that re-engagement campaigns (sometimes referred to as “retargeting”) play in its success”, wrote Seufert.
Another factor in the company’s decline has been the impact of the ongoing war on Ukraine, where the company has a large development office.
Last month, the company announced layoffs across three development studios throughout the world.
