Aristocrat sold its Plarium division to MTG for as much as $820 million.

MTG will pay $620 million to acquire Plarium, while Aristocrat could receive a further $200 million if Plarium meets specific profitability goals from 2025 to 2028.

According to MTG's announcement on the arrangement, $20 million will be postponed until 2026 out of the initial $620 million. Meanwhile, the extra $200 million will be determined in part by Plarium's group profits in 2028 and the 2025 revenue for their popular game RAID: Shadow Legends.

As part of its strategic evaluation, Aristocrat has decided to emphasis its expansion efforts on land-based gaming, real money gaming, and social casino. This agreement comes as a result.

More than 500 million people throughout the globe have signed up for Plarium's free-to-play and social PC and mobile games since it was acquired by Aristocrat in October 2017. Some of its 20 games include Mech Arena and Vikings: War of Clans, among others.

In accordance with its capital allocation policy, Aristocrat will utilise the funds from the transaction to support its growth strategy for the longer term. The company went on to say that the deal will boost future sales growth and profits.

In the first half of calendar year 2025, the merger is anticipated to close, pending closing conditions such as the acquisition of regulatory approvals.

Plarium brought in around $615 million in revenue and $137 million in adjusted EBITDA to Aristocrat's Pixel United business for the fiscal year ending 30 September 2024.

Tech and marketing gurus to help MTG
With the acquisition of Plarium, MTG was able to boost its relevant size and speed up its strategy execution. This, in turn, created a best-in-class platform that will drive future organic development, according to the company.

"The deal solidifies MTG's already impressive portfolio of casual games and positions the combined group as a global leader in operating lucrative and cash-generating mid-core games with strong and famous titles."

It plans to enhance the group's performance in the long run by using Plarium's technology stack and its knowledge of live-ops, marketing, and monetisation.

When it comes to regulated gambling and social slots, Aristocrat is a strong suit.
Trevor Croker, CEO and MD of Aristocrat, commented on the sale, saying it was the result of a strategy assessment that began in May 2024. Aristocrat aimed to shift their focus to social slots and regulated gaming, while this concentrated on assets for casual and mid-core gaming.

Croker stated, "We are increasingly focused on opportunities to lean into Aristocrat's strengths in regulated gaming content and social slots" now that the expanded Aristocrat Interactive business sits alongside Aristocrat Gaming and its market leading mobile social casino business.

The strategic skills and knowledge of mobile content that Plarium possessed have been integrated into Aristocrat's main gaming operations. Improved live operations, the capacity to scale and grow our combined social casino business, and digital marketing and user acquisition (UA) management capabilities are all helping us out.

We owe a great deal of our digital transition to Plarium, which we own. It has helped us speed up our plan through the acquisition of more businesses, which has improved our track record.

The review of Big Fish Games is still in progress.
In the meantime, Aristocrat has provided an update regarding its broader strategic review of assets related to casual gaming. Aside from the Big Fish Social Casino assets, it stated that its review of Big Fish Games is still ongoing. After paying Churchill Downs Incorporated $900 million for Big Fish Games in January 2018, the group took over the game.

Additionally, Aristocrat announced its intention to record a goodwill impairment charge pertaining to Big Fish Games in its fiscal year 24 results in this segment. Again, this does not include the assets of Big Fish Social Casino; the total will be $110 million.

As a "core component" of Product Madness's social casino business, Aristocrat said Big Fish Social Casino is doing great and will keep on doing so.

"Actively engage with third parties and assess all options to maximise shareholder value" is the group's remaining strategy.