Devolver Digital have announced they have become a publicly traded company; acquiring several developers in the process.
The publisher admits “At first blush that can certainly sound like a departure from a group of friends starting a boutique game label, but really it’s a kind of validation for our team and our partners. We’re insanely proud of what we’ve accomplished over the last decade, and we genuinely believe this will make us even better.”
Employees will still be the majority owner of Devolver Digital. The company also released their shareholders as of this time of writing. The company has 442,256,716 shares, but 322,675,548 of them (73%) are not in public hands. An additional 37,244,200 shares are held by the company treasury.
You can find the full rundown on shareholders below (with additional links to our coverage on companies where applicable)
| Shareholder | Shares held | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| NetEase Inc.* | 35,236,880 | 7.97% |
| Graeme Struthers | 30,059,890 | 6.80% |
| Nigel Lowrie | 27,464,675 | 6.21% |
| Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe Limited | 22,241,917 | 5.03% |
| Slater Investments | 20,154,489 | 4.56% |
| Eric (Rick) D. Stults | 16,841,685 | 3.81% |
| Roman Ribarić | 15,485,855 | 3.50% |
| Davor Hunski` | 15,485,855 | 3.50% |
| Chelverton Asset Management | 13,535,031 | 3.06% |
*NetEase Inc’s interest in the Company is held through its direct wholly owned subsidiary, NetEase Interactive Entertainment PTE Ltd, which holds 23,263,170 shares and its indirect wholly owned subsidiary NetEase (Hong Kong) Ltd, which holds 11,973,710 shares in the Company.
The interests and percentage holdings of the Company’s directors in shares in issue and outstanding are set out in the table below:
| Shareholder | Shares held | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Harry A. Miller IV | 98,058,520 | 22.17% |
| Joanne (Jo) Goodson | 93,798 | 0.02% |
| Kate Marsh | 23,279 | 0.01% |
GamesIndustry.biz reports that when Devolver Digital began trading on AIM (a sub-market in the London Stock Exchange), they were valued at $950 million USD. This makes them the largest US company (by market capitalisation) admitted to the London Stock Exchange; and second largest company trading on AIM.
Devolver Digital further state they will “be able to continue to invest into all the games we’re working on now, partner on new ones that we’ve previously not been able to consider, and add more of the fine people we love working with into our cadre of consummate video game professionals.”
The latter point also comes with the announcement of Devolver Digital acquiring several studios. These include Croteam (Serious Sam, The The Talos Principle), Dodge Roll Games (Enter the Gungeon), Nerial (Reigns, Card Shark) and FireFly Studios (Stronghold series).
“Those developers and our team looked ahead and saw that we’d be working together forever so we lovingly acquired them,” Devolver explained, “mostly so they would hang out with us more. The games and experiences that these four studios have planned are incredible and each maintain their full creative autonomy afforded to them throughout our relationship.”
None of these upcoming games were revealed at this time, but Devolver Digital jokingly tease “no specific plans for Enter the Gungeon 2 but rest assured we’ve asked them more than once.”
