North East games developer acquired by international company for £2m

An international creative services provider has announced the acquisition of a North East games development company.

Keywords Studios, will be taking over Gateshead-based Coconut Lizard, a company providing specialised game development services, for a consideration of up to £2m.

Last year, Coconut Lizard generated revenues of over £1.5m, and since January has added 10 developers to its team.

Keywords will pay a non contingent consideration of £1.35m, comprising £0.99m in cash and the remainder through the issue of 19,739 new ordinary shares to the sellers.

The remaining consideration of up to £0.65m will become payable to the sellers, in a mixture of cash and shares, based upon performance targets for Coconut Lizard over the first 12 months post completion.

Andrew Day, CEO of Keywords Studios, commented: “We are delighted to welcome Robert and the team at Coconut Lizard to the Keywords family.

“The Coconut Lizard team will bring further expertise in the Unreal Engine as well as access to talent to our wider team of around 1,000 people working across our Game Development studios internationally.

“Having recently successfully raised £100m in a placing, we are pleased to have completed our first acquisition despite the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We expect to complete further acquisitions over the months ahead from the strong and attractive pipeline of opportunities that we are currently reviewing.”