Corporate Team Acts for Neon Play in Acquisition by Hachette UK
The corporate team at BPE Solicitors LLP has acted for Neon Play, the multi-award winning UK mobile games development studios, based in Cirencester, in its acquisition by Hachette UK.
One of the UK’s leading digital games developers, Neon Play was founded by co-owners Oli Christie and Mark Allen in 2010 and has created more than 30 games, which have attracted a combined total of more than 60 million downloads. Since the company’s inception, it has won 20 business awards, including the Queen’s Award for Innovation, and Oli Christie was named Entrepreneur of the Year at the UK Chamber of Commerce Awards in 2011.
Oli Christie, Neon Play CEO, said: ‘Mark and I have huge ambitions for the growth of Neon Play and I’m delighted that, in Hachette, we’ve found an owner who is as enthusiastic about our business as we are. In fact, we think it’s the perfect meeting of minds.’
BPE Solicitors Partner, Tim Ward, led the deal for the firm, and said: ‘Oli and his team at Neon Play have achieved something truly amazing. At BPE, we enjoy working with such entrepreneurial companies to help shape their future growth and development. We believe this deal creates some great opportunities for both parties, and being involved with such an exciting deal has been fantastic.’
Neon Play will continue at its Cirencester base with the management and team continuing to run as a stand-alone business under the Hachette UK umbrella.
Tim Hely Hutchinson, CEO of Hachette UK said: ‘For some time Hachette has been developing a plan to diversify into the games market. This is both to provide opportunities for our authors to be published in a new dimension, and also to pursue more generally our aims to generate rapid growth on a variety of digital platforms. We have been looking for a bold, creative, well managed and highly successful games studio and we have found it in Neon Play. I am delighted that Oli and Mark, who are brimming with exciting ideas, see Hachette as the right partner for their future.’
The Corporate team at BPE always pride themselves on being more than just lawyers, acting also as trusted business advisors for their clients. Their experience with similarly entrepreneurial businesses sets them in good standing to understand the ambitions and needs of other such businesses.
Through their ethos of supporting businesses throughout their development, the law firm aims to help structure businesses to achieve their growth plans, whatever form they may take.
These notes have been prepared for the purpose of articles only. They should not be regarded as a substitute for taking legal advice.