Activision Blizzard is purchasing King Digital, the makers of popular game Candy Crush, for a total equity value of $5.9 billion.
The deal is all cash.
Activision Blizzard will $18 per share, which is nearly a $20% premium over King’s recent price.
While the acquisition still has to be approved by King’s shareholders and cleared by relevant antitrust authorities, the sale was unanimously approved by the boards of both Activision and King. It is expected that the sale will completed by Spring 2016.
With the acquisition, Activision Blizzard will have added two of the top five highest grossing US mobile games to its already formidable war chest of intellectual properties, including Call of Duty, World of WarCraft, StarCraft, Hearthstone, Guitar Hero, Destiny and others.
