The video game services company Keywords Studios has said it is prepared to accept £100m less from its private equity suitor, after revealing that a slowdown in the sector had led to a number of its projects being cancelled or delayed.
The Swedish private equity investor EQT originally put forward a £25.50 a share offer for Keywords, a 70% premium on its market price in May, worth £2.2bn.
However, Dublin-headquartered Keywords said in a company filing on Friday that EQT had since dropped its offer to £24.50 a share, taking the total price down to £2.1bn.
It follows a due diligence review by EQT, which showed a slowdown across the video game industry over the past six months was weighing on the company’s growth.
Keywords explained that a small number of large game development projects had been delayed into the second half of the year or cancelled, and that it had been unable to find any work to replace them at such short notice.
Keywords, which provides services to the developers of some of the world’s biggest games, including Fortnite, Clash of Clans, League of Legends and Assassin’s Creed, said it would cut costs as it waited for business to pick up.
“The board is confident in delivering strong overall revenue and profit growth in 2024, with performance expected to be second-half weighted as the sector emerges from slower content creation trends that are currently dampening industry spend and therefore group growth,” it added.
In the meantime, Keywords said it was “minded to recommend” the lower offer to its shareholders, meaning it was likely to become the latest company to leave the London Stock Exchange.
Founded in 1998, the firm launched to help business software developers translate their products for release in other countries. In the early 2000s, it shifted focus towards games, and has since ridden the huge expansion in the size of the global industry, which far exceeds other entertainment sectors such as Hollywood or the music industry. Keywords listed its shares in 2014.
Keywords offers a range of services, including producing games in whole or in part for other developers, producing voice and sound effects for games, translating games into different languages, and porting games between different platforms such as Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation.
EQT has until 3 July to make a firm offer for Keywords, or walk away from the deal. Keywords’ shares were up more than 5% at £23 on Friday.
If the deal goes ahead, it will add to a growing list of companies leaving the London Stock Exchange, amid concerns that UK firms remain undervalued by investors, and that the City is losing its edge against overseas rivals.
In May, the Paddy Power owner, Flutter, announced its decision to switch its primary listing to New York, while the UK chip designer Arm opted to list on Wall Street last August after the government failed to convince it to float in London.
The British investment fund supermarket Hargreaves Lansdown said this month it would accept a proposed offer from private equity investors, in a move that would leave another hole in the FTSE 100 index.
