Tencent Acquires Stake In Japanese Creative Studio For $44M

Tencent Holdings Ltd TCEHY had tacitly acquired a 90% stake in Japanese creative studio Wake Up Interactive Ltd for over 5 billion yen ($44 million) in September, Bloomberg reports.
The studio has several Nintendo Co Ltd NTDOY Nintendo Switch hit games.
Wake Up owns Tokyo-based Soleil Ltd, which developed Nintendo Switch hit Ninjala and helped create Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes. Soleil is known for producing high-quality action games for consoles, PCs, and smartphones.
Tencent and NetEase Inc NTES hired fresh talent in Japan over the past two years to acquire valuable intellectual property in anime and video games and decrease their revenue dependence on the domestic China market.
In October, Kadokawa Corp KDKWF admitted Tencent plans to pay 30 billion yen for a 6.86% stake in the publishing company.
The two Chinese game titans have also acquired or taken a stake in numerous smaller Japan-based game developers.
Their focus has been on small studios and talented individuals contemplating leaving a more prominent company to set up their creative operation. In most cases, the deals are kept secret from the public over competitive grounds.
Price Action: TCEHY shares traded lower by 0.29% at $61.66 in the premarket session on the last check Thursday.