Weekly News of 03rd of April
Savvy Games to acquire gaming company Scopely for $4.9 bln
Savvy Games Group, wholly owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), has agreed to acquire Scopely, a maker of mobile games based in Culver City, California, for $4.9 billion, reports Reuters.
Scopely, founded in 2011, will become an autonomous operation under the Savvy umbrella, they said in a statement, noting the deal will “strengthen Savvy’s global position” and enable Scopely to accelerate growth.
Last year, state news agency SPA said Savvy would invest 142 billion riyals ($37.85 billion) in initiatives aimed at making the kingdom a global hub for gaming.
In February, Savvy bought a $265 million stake in the Chinese E-sports company VSPO backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd.
LayerZero Labs valued at $3 billion after latest fund-raise
LayerZero Labs has raised $120 million in an early stage funding round, that has tripled the blockchain messaging protocol’s valuation to $3 billion, reports Reuters.
The Series B fund-raise saw participation from 33 investors, including a16z crypto, Christie’s, Circle Ventures, OpenSea Ventures, Samsung Next, and Sequoia Capital, amongst others.
The fund-raise underscores a growing affinity for companies to tap private investors at a time turbulent markets and a risk-off sentiment has throttled appetite for public listings.
In February, Via said it bagged a valuation of $3.5 billion after a funding round led by 83North.
LayerZero plans to use the funds to increase headcount as well as deepen its presence in the APAC region.
Last year, the New York-based blockchain infrastructure provider had raised $135 million in a funding round led by Sequoia Capital, FTX Ventures among others that valued it at $1 billion.
LayerZero Labs allows decentralized apps build across multiple blockchains. It has received backing from some of the strongest crypto-focused companies in the entire world, including Binance, Blockdaemon, Christie’s, Circle Ventures, Coinbase, OpenSea Ventures, and many more.
SK Hynix raises $1.7bln in convertible bond as chip slump deepens
South Korea’s SK Hynix has raised $1.7 billion in its first convertible bond sale in a decade, as the world’s second-largest memory chipmaker braces for deepening quarterly losses, hit by a sharp downturn in global semiconductor demand, reports Reuters.
The financing, the first such deal by the firm since it was acquired by energy to telecoms conglomerate SK Group in 2012, follows a rare $15.2 billion financing deal by cash-rich Samsung in February.
SK Hynix said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday that the proceeds of the bond sale would be used to fund operations such as buying chip production materials. The bond is convertible into shares amounting to 20.1 million, or a 2.8% stake.
“This financing is expected to end market concerns about a short-term liquidity crunch,” Kim Kwang-jin, an analyst at Hanwha Investment & Securities, wrote in a note.
Shares in SK Hynix dropped as much as 4% before paring its loss to 2.5%, versus a 0.4% gain in the broader market.
The fundraising comes after SK Hynix posted a record quarterly operating loss of 1.7 trillion won ($1.4 billion) in the September-December quarter.
Analysts forecast a much worse loss in the quarter ended March 31 before an expected memory chip industry rebound in the second half of the year.
The bonds, to be listed in Singapore, have a coupon of 1.75% a year and will mature in 2030, according to a term sheet seen by Reuters.
SK Hynix’s deal was the largest convertible bond in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan, in a year, according to Refinitiv data.
The company originally planned to raise up to $1.5 billion but the size was increased to $1.7 billion while the bookbuild was underway because of high demand, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorised to speak publicly.
Demand for the bonds was four times the amount on sale and investor appetite was not dented by recent global financial market volatility, the person added.
“We successfully issued bonds due to high demand, and many investors are believed to have put weight on the company’s growth potential, despite difficult business conditions,” SK Hynix said in a statement.
