Baker Botts has advised Stockholm-headquartered Modern Times Group (MTG), the NASDAQ-listed international mobile gaming group with popular global IPs across a wide range of casual and mid-core genres, on its acquisition of Plarium Global Ltd (Plarium), the studio behind the popular squad battler role-playing game, RAID: Shadow Legends.

Plarium, which is headquartered in Israel with creative teams in Ukraine, Poland, Finland and Spain, is part of the Australian group, Aristocrat Leisure, a leader in gaming content creation.  As well as RAID: Shadow Legends, Plarium’s offering includes strategy and city-building game Vikings, player-vs-player battler Mech Arena and casual title Merge Gardens.  It has several other projects in development.  Its proprietary direct-to-consumer platform, Plarium Play, and marketing analytics tool, GoGame, will accelerate the performance of MTG’s portfolio.

The transaction values Plarium at USD 620 million, plus potential earn-out consideration of up to USD 200 million based on performance over 2025-28.  For more information, please see MTG’s press release here.

This is the second time Baker Botts has advised MTG this year, having previously represented the group on the combination of its US and Chile-based studio, Kongregrate, Inc., with Monumental Studios, Inc., for a 30% stake in the combined business. These deals demonstrate the firm’s understanding of both the nature of the technology and MTG’s commercial business objectives.

London Corporate partner David Marshall led a cross-border team of Baker Botts lawyers, supported by Washington Corporate partner Brendan Dignan.  David also led the Baker Botts team on the Kongregate transaction, and previously advised MTG on their acquisitions of Hutch Games (UK), Ninja Kiwi (New Zealand) and Playsimple (India).

Reflecting the global nature of the Plarium transaction, the firm brought together lawyers from its international offices and across its interdisciplinary Technology group. The Baker Botts team included:

Corporate: David Marshall (Lead Partner, London); Brendan Dignan (Partner, Washington); Blake Haarstad (Associate, New York)

Antitrust: Matthew Levitt (Partner, Brussels); Kassia Pletscher (Associate, London)

Intellectual Property: Neil Coulson (Partner, London); Nick Palmieri (Associate, New York); Lucy Soyinka (Associate, Dallas)

International Trade: Joyce Adetutu (Partner, Houston); Alexander P. Reinert (Associate, Washington)

Income Tax: Jon Lobb (Partner, Houston); Jordan Hahn (Senior Associate, Dallas)