Breakdown
- Embracer Group no longer interested in selling assets.
- Gearbox sale was due to high capital expenditures as studio had plans to expand to publishing
- CEO Lars Wingefors say they received offers to purchase certain assets, but they refused.
After successfully negotiating the sale of Gearbox to Take-Two Interactive for a reported $460 million, the Embracer chief executive officer (CEO) has officially concluded its restructuring process, which started in July 2023.
Following a botched acquisition deal, the Embracer Group began a lengthy restructuring that saw it sell or close studios and cancel ongoing development projects starting July 2023.
One major casualty of these actions was Steve Ellis’ newly reformed Free Radical Design, which was working on a reimagined TimeSplitters game.
The latest sale involved Gearbox, the studio behind the successful Borderlands games. Last week, Embracer sold Gearbox for $460 million to Take-Two Interactive, a deal that led to the confirmation of Borderlands 4’s active development almost immediately after the declaration.
The sale appears to be the last divestment in the reorganisation of Embracer’s assets, as CEO Lars Wingefors has declared during a recent investor’s call that they’re no longer selling any more items in its current portfolio.
Wingefors revealed that they have received calls from parties interested in acquiring “certain assets within the group,” but the CEO declined these offers. He explained that the assets in question were those he assured shareholders were essential to their operations.
Wingefors also described the Gearbox sale as one of the “important milestones” that drove the restructuring process and the Saber Interactive divestment.
The Embracer chief also took the time to clarify the decision to sell Gearbox. Wingefors said that they agreed to let go of the studio because Gearbox was also interested in publishing and developing games, which would have resulted in high capital expenditures for the next six years.
“We decided this is the best outcome because we needed to reduce our CapEx significantly and reduce our business risk. We're not making this deal because we're unhappy with the development team of Gearbox,” he explained.
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