Tencent to buy British video game company Sumo in $1.3 billion deal

Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings will buy video game company Sumo Group in a deal that values the British firm at 919 million pounds ($1.27 billion), the companies said on Monday.

Sumo's shareholders will get 513 pence in cash per share, Tencent said. The offer is at 43 percent premium to the Sumo's last closing price of 358 pence. The share has risen multifold since its listing on LSE's junior market AIM in 2017 at 100 pence.

Tencent has an 8.75 percent stake and is the second-biggest stakeholder in the company, which has 14 studios in five countries with more than 1,200 employees.

"The Board of Sumo firmly believes the business will benefit from Tencent's broad videogaming eco-system, proven industry expertise and its strategic resources," Sumo's non-executive chairman Ian Livingstone said.

-reuters

Tencent pledges $7.7 billion to support China poverty, environment initiatives

Chinese tech giant Tencent on Monday pledged to invest 50 billion yuan ($7.68 billion) in environmental and social initiatives, a move that comes as China's internet heavyweights come under intense scrutiny from antitrust regulators.

Tencent, China's biggest social media and video games company, said its investment would fund initiatives in areas including basic science, education innovation, rural revitalisation, carbon neutrality, food, energy, and water provision, assistance with public emergencies, technology for senior citizens and public welfare.

It also said it is forming a corporate development group to spearhead such initiatives. It did not provide a time frame for its investment.

"Tencent should continue to respond to the ever-changing needs of the public and of the era, so as to develop and prosper together with society as a whole," Pony Ma, founder and chairman of Tencent, said in a statement.

Last week, China's market regulator warned the country's biggest internet companies to eradicate any banned practices, two days after slapping Alibaba with a record $2.75 billion fine after an investigation found it had abused its dominant market position for several years.

President Xi Jinping has made poverty alleviation one of his key priorities.

-reuters