Axel Springer buys Gamigo to bolster "digitization offensive"

Axel Springer's taken a majority shareholding in MMO provider Gamigo, the Germany media company's announced, and now owns 94.8 percent of the firm.

“Gamigo operates in a fast growing market segment, it will quadruple sales this year and it is profitable," said AS boss, Jens Müffelmann.

"Due to that online gaming is to become an important pillar within the digitization offensive of Axel Springer.”

You cannot beat an offensive. Press release after the link.

Axel Springer acquires majority stake of online gaming provider Gamigo

Axel Springer AG has taken over a majority stake of the online gaming provider Gamigo through its holding company AS Venture GmbH. It now holds 94.8 percent of the shares. AS Venture has been holding shares of Gamigo AG since 2000. Most recently it held 47.4 percent. The company is one of the leading German providers of -“Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG)”-, online games that can be played simultaneously by thousands of participants.

Dr. Jens Müffelmann, Director of the Corporate Division Electronic Media of Axel Springer AG explains the reasons for the transaction: “Gamigo operates in a fast growing market segment, it will quadruple sales this year and it is profitable. Due to that online gaming is to become an important pillar within the digitization offensive of Axel Springer.”

AS Venture took over the shares of bmp Media Investors. The remaining shares, amounting to 5.2 percent, are held by Gamigo’s CEO Sven Ossenbrüggen. With this transaction AS Venture holds from now exclusively majority stakes holding with Zanox, Idealo, Hamburg.de and Gamigo.

Over the course of the majority takeover by AS Venture the management board of Gamigo AG will be enlarged by Patrick Streppel, who, as project manager in the Corporate Division Electronic Media, had been responsible for the realignment of Gamigo.

The takeover has already been unconditionally authorized by the cartel office.