Swedish company Embracer Group AB is set to sell Saber Interactive to a group of private investors for $500 million.<\/p>\n
Saber is one of the gaming publishing and development arms of parent company Embracer. The company is made up of 20 individual gaming studios with 2,500 employees worldwide and has titles such as Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, Jurassic Park: Survival, World War Z, and a possible reboot of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in the works.<\/p>\n
Bloomberg\u2019s Jason Schreier <\/span><\/span>broke the story and posted to X about Saber becoming a private company with a possible 3,500 employees, according to his unnamed source:<\/p>\n SCOOP: Saber Interactive, developer of the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake, will leave Embracer in a $500 million deal to become a privately owned company \u2014 the biggest move yet in Embracer’s ongoing cost-cutting initiative https:\/\/t.co\/QzpQ2uQ9r2<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) February 29, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n A collapsed deal with an external investor in May last year left the company needing to take \u201ccontrol in our own hands.\u201d<\/p>\n What those hands held was SEK 16.8 billion ($1.5 billion) debt at that time and the company has made strides to reduce this debt to SEK 8 billion ($728.2 million) by the end of this month, March 31.<\/p>\n A translated investor earnings call<\/a> showed the CEO,\u00a0 Lars Wingefors stating the collapsed deal and the prospective investor could not be named for legal reasons.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t comment on business partnerships unless both partners would like to do that,\u201d Wingefors would say. \u201cThe background given to us as to why the partnership didn\u2019t happen was not because of the terms or the pipeline of games. It was more, \u2018Yes, they would like to do something in the future, but not now,\u2019 which became a \u2018no\u2019 for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Now might be the time for Embracer and these investors, but it remains to be seen if this $500 million deal has anything to do with the one that collapsed back in May 2023.<\/p>\n What it does define is the future of certain franchises and games under the Saber banner and helps the Swedish company take a serious amount off the debt they currently have.<\/p>\n Warhammer 40000<\/a>: Space Marine was all set for a November 2023 launch and was pushed back to August 2024 after impressive gameplay gave fans much to get excited about. The much rumored Star Wars: The Knights of the Old Republic is still in development according to Schreier<\/span><\/span>, but no news has been heard as the title has been in limbo since 2022.<\/p>\n Borderland\u2019s<\/a> developer Gearbox Interactive, who is also owned by Embracer, has been the source of many rumors with CEO Randy Pitchford supposedly holding an all-staff meeting about developments at the company, according to Kotaku<\/a>.<\/p>\n Embracer has already seen one of their studios fold as Volition<\/a>, the creator of the Saint\u2019s Row franchise would post to Linkedin:\n
Embracer selling Saber<\/h2>\n
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