Keywords Studios Plc Regulatory News (KWS)

21 December 2018

Keywords Studios plc ("Keywords", "the Group")

Acquisition of Sunny Side Up and Trading Update

Further Strengthening the Group's Marketing Services capabilities

Keywords Studios, the international technical services provider to the global video games industry, today announces that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Sunny Side Up Creative Inc ("Sunny Side Up") from its founder, Thomas Giroux (the "Seller"). The acquisition is expected to complete, subject to certain conditions being fulfilled, no later than 4 January 2019.

Based in Quebec City, Canada, Sunny Side Up produces high quality marketing assets for game publishers and developers including game trailers, key art assets and motion graphic production. The acquisition will complement and build on Keywords' game trailer and marketing services offering provided by Fire Without Smoke, The TrailerFarm and its other Art Services studios.

Established in 2012, Sunny Side Up continues to grow rapidly and works with many games developers and publishers including Ubisoft, EA and Eidos. 

The company generated adjusted EBITDA of CAD1.2m in the year to 30 September 2018. The total consideration for the acquisition is CAD5.9m, of which CAD4.75m is being paid in cash on completion and the rest through the issue of 60,179 new ordinary shares in Keywords. The consideration shares will be issued to the Seller on the first anniversary of the acquisition and will then be subject to orderly market provisions for a further 12 months.

Andrew Day, CEO of Keywords Studios commented:

"We are delighted to welcome Thomas and the talented Sunny Side Up team to the Keywords family. Following our acquisitions of Fire Without Smoke and The TrailerFarm, Sunny Side Up's high quality game trailers, technical expertise and marketing service experience further extends the Group's geographic, client reach and scale in this relatively new and exciting area for Keywords.

"As part of the Group, Sunny Side Up will be able to leverage our well established presence in Montreal and Quebec City to support its continued growth.

"We will as usual provide a fuller trading update by the end of January but, as we approach our year end, we expect adjusted profit before tax to be within the range of analyst forecasts at around €37m on revenues in the region of €250m (around €258m on a constant currency basis), which would represent increases of 61% and 65% on the prior year respectively."

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About Keywords Studios (www.keywordsstudios.com) 

Keywords Studios is an international technical services provider to the global video games industry. Established in 1998, and now with over 50 facilities in 20 countries strategically located in Asia, the Americas and Europe, it provides integrated art creation, software engineering, testing, localisation, audio and customer care services across more than 50 languages and 16 games platforms to a blue-chip client base of approximately 650 clients across the globe. It has a strong market position, providing services to 23 of the top 25 most prominent games companies, including Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco, Bethesda, Electronic Arts, Konami, Riot Games, Sony, Square Enix, Supercell, TakeTwo, Epic Games and Ubisoft. Recent titles worked on include Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, Call of Duty: WWII, Mortal Combat X, Assassin's Creed Origins, Battlefield 1, League of Legends, Fortnite, Clash Royale and Rainbow Six Siege. Keywords Studios is listed on AIM, the London Stock Exchange regulated market (KWS.L).

About Sunny Side Up (www.sunnysup.com)

Sunny Side Up is an award-winning creative agency and full-service trailer production studio formed by veterans from the video game industry. Founded in 2012 by Thomas Giroux in Quebec City, it worked on trailers and marketing content for games such as Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Rainbow Six Siege, EA's The Sims 4: Get Famous and Eidos' Shadow of the Tomb Raider.