Modern Times Group MTG (MTG) has acquired New Zealand-based tower defence mobile games developer and publisher Ninja Kiwi Ltd (Ninja Kiwi).
The acquisition of Ninja Kiwi marks an important additional step in the journey to reach further organic and acquisitive growth for MTG and is in line with the company’s overall strategy to further build a diversified gaming segment, and stronger GamingCo. The up-front consideration amounts to approximately SEK1,217 million (NZD203 million) and earn-out payments at an expected value of SEK406 million (NZD68 million) in aggregate, including cash and share components.
MTG has today entered into an agreement for the acquisition of the New Zealand-based mobile games developer Ninja Kiwi, which was first announced to be in negotiation on 14 January 2021. The acquisition of Ninja Kiwi marks an important next step in the build-up of a diversified gaming segment with high-quality gaming companies and is in line with MTG’s strategy to drive value creation through organic growth and strategic M&A. Ninja Kiwi broadens MTG’s gaming vertical to cover a new gaming genre, tower defence strategy games, with a total of approximately 140 million downloads to date and 6.2 million monthly active users. After completing the acquisition, MTG holds strong positions in the city building and strategy genres through InnoGames, mobile racing through Hutch, idle games through Kongregate and tower defence through Ninja Kiwi.
MTG’s Group President and CEO Maria Redin, says: “Ninja Kiwi has popularised the entire genre of tower defence games, and continues to pioneer it. Its evergreen Bloons IP and gaming platform has introduced millions to the tower defence genre, combining puzzle and strategy elements in games developed mainly for mobile platforms.”
”The strong organic traffic to Ninja Kiwi’s portfolio of games is hugely impressive, as is the company’s successful combination of paid and in-app purchase models in its pricing structure – both are testament to the quality of the titles that Ninja Kiwi has created. We’re very pleased that Ninja Kiwi is joining MTG and our growing gaming vertical, further broadening our offering through the introduction of a new genre,” she adds
Ninja Kiwi’s Co-founders, Chief Executive Officer Chris Harris and Chief Creative Officer Stephen Harris, says: “We are genuinely excited to join MTG. We have developed our relationship over a number of years and have often discussed the opportunities of working together.”
“By joining MTG we will gain access not just to resources to further develop our existing games and launch new ones, but also to the wealth of skills and know-how across the companies within MTG’s GamingCo that will allow us to deliver even better games to our longstanding community. We’re particularly excited about the timely opportunity to work with ESL Gaming as we are pleased to officially announce that Bloons TD Battles 2 will launch later this year,” they say.
