Infogrames Entertainment SA, France’s largest computer games publisher and developer, yesterday announced its was spending $50m to acquire privately-held games company Accolade Inc, based in San Jose. Once the deal is complete, Infogrames will inject $10m of growth capital into its new subsidiary.
Accolade, which also had revenue of $50m last year, primarily brings greater US distribution to Infogrames. They’re not buying it for its products or its developers, but rather its distribution channels, argued one analyst, describing the US company’s product portfolio as old and unexciting. Another argued that it was not surprising that they are getting Accolade for only 1.2 times annual sales.
Infogrames has been pursuing a strategy of growth through acquisitions. So far this year, it has announced the 40m acquisition of UK sports games developer Gremlin Group Plc (CI No 3626) and that of Beam Software in Australia. The Paris-based company’s CEO Bruno Bonnell said the company still had some $10m in cash after these buys, and would not be looking for further acquisitions in the near future.
He added that Infogrames itself already has annual sales in the US of around $50m, and that the target for the combined revenue of the Infogrames and Accolade business in the US market is $150m for the year 2000. The $10m injection in Accolade is designed to help the US operation achieve that target, he explained.
