Tencent grabs minority stake in Seasun Games for $142.6M

Chinese internet giant Tencent has picked up a 9.9 percent stake in developer Seasun Games for $142.6 million. 

As reported by the Financial Times, the deal went through in two parts. Initially, Tencent subsidiary Image Frame Entertainment agreed to pay $62.2 million for 4.3 percent of the total Seasun shares issued by its parent company, Kingsoft. 

After that, Image Frame went about picking up another 5.6 percent in shares issued by others including WestGame Holdings, United Websoft, and Xiaomi. That secondary deal cost the company around $80 million. 

Founded in 1995, Seasun is one of China's oldest game developers, and has made a name for itself creating PC MMO and mobile titles like Brave Cross, Go Titans, and JX Online 3.

In a brief press release, the studio said the deal will allow it to harness Tencent’s "complete user analysis system, large user resources, and robust live operation and publishing abilities" to build out its own publishing operations on PC and mobile.