Huuuge prices IPO at PLN50 per share

| By Daniel O'Boyle
Social game developer Huuuge has priced its initial public offering (IPO) at PLN50(£9.77/€11.15/$13.41) per share, making the IPO the largest for a gaming business in the history of the Warsaw Stock Exchange with a total value of PLN1.67bn.
Money

The developer had previously announced plans to list on the exchange, offering 33.3m shares. Of these 33.3m shares, 15m will be newly issued, while 18.3m are existing shares, mostly held by major investors such as Big Bets OÜ, which is owned by company founder Anton Gauffin and holds 42% of Huuuge shares.

Institutional investors will be offered 31.6m of the shares, with the remaining 1.7m offered to retail investors.

“We are a global company on a mission to empower billions of people to play together,” Gauffin said. “Today we are taking a major step forward by welcoming all our new shareholders, who will join us as we bring social gaming to an ever greater number of players around the world. 

“We are delighted with such a positive response from investors across the globe, which we believe reflects the confidence in our growth plan and strength of Huuuge’s social and global business model.”

Following the completion of the IPO, Gauffin’s Big Bets OÜ will hold 30.7% of Huuuge shares, having held 42% before it began.

Based on the PLN50 offer price, Huuuge’s market capitalisation would total 4.20bn

Last month, Huuuge revealed that it intends to use more than 90% of the PLN565m it raised through the sale of new shares to pursue acquisitions of other social gaming studios.

It said it was hoping to target established studios with both “compelling return on advertising spend” and potential for further growth and valued between $20m and $300m, and had already identified around 60 possible acquisition targets.

Huuuge shares will start trading on the exchange from 19 February.

“Becoming a public global company starts a new chapter for Huuuge,” Gauffin said. “It means we are ready to accelerate our build & buy growth strategy, building our smart network and portfolio of games, continually advancing the social gameplay experience with new innovations and ideas, and realising new opportunities to bring people together.”

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