New London-based organisation Guild Esports has been valued at a market capitalisation of £41.2m.
Guild announced plans to float on the London Stock Exchange last month – and it had its first day of dealings on the stock market yesterday (October 2nd 2020) under the ticker symbol GILD.
A total of 250m ordinary shares were placed at 8p each, valuing Guild at a market capitalisation of £41.2m, and the company will have 514m shares in issue overall.
The news comes as shareholder and public face of the brand, David Beckham, spoke on Guild’s Twitter page:
Beckham said: “I’m really proud to join Guild Esports. It’s a sector that I’ve been monitoring for a while now.
“The thing that excites me about being part of Guild is the academy system. If you have the right pipeline for talent, that brings that tribal loyalty that you have within a team.
“I always go into a business thinking ‘we’re going to be number one’. We want to be the number one esports team in the business.”
Carleton Curtis, executive chairman, added: “Guild’s debut on the London stock market is a major step in the company’s development and provides a strong foundation to execute our long-term growth strategy.
“We are delighted with the strong support from a wide range of institutional and other investors, to build a global fan base and leading esports teams under the Guild brand.”
Guild Esports was announced back in June, and since then has signed a top Rocket League team featuring British players like Scrub Killa and coach Gregan, as well as FIFA player NRaseck.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
