Chinese Zhejiang Jinke Entertainment Culture reportedly acquires Slovenia’s Talking Tom for €1bn

By bne IntelliNews January 6, 2017

Chinese group Zhejiang Jinke Entertainment Culture Co has reportedly acquired entertainment company Outfit7, majority-owned by Slovenia's richest couple Samo and Iza Login, for €1bn, regional business portal SEEbiz reported on January 5, claiming this would be the largest acquisition in Slovenia ever.

The Logins and their company have become well known and successful mainly thanks to the globally popular cat Talking Tom, which they launched in 2009. Currently, there are 15 applications within the Talking Tom and Friends umbrella brand, and 300mn  active users monthly.

According to SEEbiz, the Logins, who own 60% of the company, refused to respond to journalists questions after the still unconfirmed news was published initially in Slovenia’s daily Finance.

The couple were said to have decided on the sale of Outfit7 several months ago, with estimates valuing their company at €600mn, Slovenian Press Agency (STA) reported on November 29.

Zhejiang Jinke Entertainment Culture is a joint stock company with a market capitalisation of €3.7bn. Trading in its shares has been suspended for a month over what the group said was its plans to buy a company in the field of mobile games and the entertainment industry, STA said in November.

Zhejiang Jinke Entertainment Culture's main line of business is chemicals production, but earlier this year the company acquired Zhexin IT, whose activities are similar to those of Outfit7.

Outfit7 generated €108mn in group revenue last year (up from €79mn in 2014) and €80mn in net profit (up from €60mn in 2014) and paid out €74mn in dividends, STA reported.

Holding Outfit7 Investments Limited is based in London and is a tax resident of Cyprus.

 

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