Mobile games are so moreish they can be hard to put down. SoftBank has reportedly managed to go cold turkey, negotiating the sale of its 73 per cent stake in Supercell, the Finnish maker of Clash of Clans, to China’s Tencent in a deal said to value the company at $9bn.
SoftBank took a majority stake in 2013 and Supercell celebrated finding a partner “whose focus isn’t on the next 10 years but next 100 years”. It turns out that Softbank’s investment horizon was rather shorter than that.
No harm done. SoftBank is making a good return — it paid $1.5bn for an initial 51 per cent stake three years ago. The tricky part will be how to deploy the capital between venture investments, paying down debt or strengthening its troublesome US mobile phone business, Sprint.