Tencent Now Holds Shares In Control, Alan Wake Studio Remedy

Tencent, the internet behemoth that has investments in numerous gaming companies around the world, has now bought shares in yet another studio.

Alan Wake and Control studio Remedy Entertainment has announced that Tencent recently purchased 500,000 shares in the Finnish studio from Accendo Capital SICAV RAIF. This works out to 3.8% of the outstanding shares in Remedy. A sale price was not disclosed.

After the sale, Accendo continues to hold 1.8 million shares of Remedy, which represents 14% of the company.

Remedy CEO Tero Virtala said in a press release that Accendo's sale of 500,000 shares to Tencent is first and foremost a deal between those two companies and not Remedy. However, Virtala said he's happy to learn that Tencent wants to invest in Remedy given Tencent's history.

"We are naturally aware that Tencent has extensive expertise in the industry, so we are honored by their interest in Remedy and happy to welcome Tencent as a new shareholder," he said.

Tencent executive Bo Wang said in the release that his company has been tracking Remedy for some time and is impressed by what the studio has achieved.

"Tencent welcomes this opportunity to become a long-term shareholder of Remedy and we look forward to using our industry knowledge to support Remedy in the future," Wang said.

Despite releasing no games in 2020, Remedy had its most successful year on record thanks in part to royalty income from Control and all the money it got from Epic Games to bring two new games exclusively to the Epic Games Store.

Remedy has at least six games in the works, including an "early phase" project. The five others include the single-player modes for Crossfire X and Crossfire HD, the two games with Epic Games, and a free-to-play co-op game called Vanguard that is still in the early stages.

Tencent owns League of Legends studio Riot Games, Clash of Clans developer Supercell, and Path of Exile company Grinding Gear. Tencent also has minority investments in a huge group of game studios, including Epic Games, Ubisoft, Activision Blizzard, Platinum Games, and many more.

The $8.6 billion that Tencent paid to acquire Supercell in 2016 is the largest gaming acquisition in history, with Microsoft's $7.5 billion purchase of ZeniMax and Bethesda ranking second.