ESL majority owner Modern Times Group (MTG) has announced the acquisition of Hutch Games, a London-based developer of mobile racing games.
The deal is worth $375m, with $275m of that paid up front and a further $100m in earn-out payments to follow.
Hutch is free-to-play mobile games developer and publisher founded in 2011, focusing on mobile racing games. It has a portfolio of 13 games, including Top Drives, F1 Manager and Rebel Racing, with more than 300 million downloads overall to date.
Hutch has more than 100 team members, of whom 70 are developers.
It generated around $56.3m in revenues during the first 9 months of 2020, and $14m in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
Maria Redin, CEO and group president of MTG, commented: “Hutch is a true front-runner, responsible for some of the most successful titles in the fast-growing mobile racing category and spearheaded by an exceptionally strong and highly-experienced team.
“We are thrilled to welcome Hutch to MTG, both as a stellar company in its own right, and as the first investment made by our new gaming holding company.”
Shaun Rutland, CEO and co-founder of Hutch, added: “We are excited to join MTG – in them, we have found a home that believes in our values, supports us in our mission and can help take our company and our games to the next level.
“When we founded Hutch, we wanted to create a world-class working environment and an empowered team dedicated to growing the racing genre on mobile. We made every member of the team a shareholder to recognize the value of their efforts, so this is an important day for all of us.”
MTG’s gaming portfolio also includes InnoGames and Kongregate.
On December 7th, MTG established a new holdings company for its games development business, known as GamingCo.
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.
