Keywords is an international technical service provider to the global Video Game Industry with offices in Dublin, Tokyo, Seattle, Montreal and Rome. Working on a worldwide basis, we provide a range of linguistic, testing, and quality control services to Video Game Developers and Publishers alike.

Keywords is focused 100% on the localization and testing of video games. Our experience and dedication to this field allows us to provide our clients with games that connect to their core audience, no matter what language they speak.

With our principal operations hub in Dublin, Keywords works globally. Our business is international in every sense so we are available to clients in North America and Japan just as we are available to those based in Europe. Providing our clients access to us so we can service their needs is tremendously important. There are points of contact ready to speak with our customers during all global business hours.

http://www.keywordsintl.com/en

Shares today -WHY GET OFF NOW?
One of the issues that FinnCap analyst Harold Evans points out is that the company is ‘ticking every box except valuation’. The company is trading on a sky price to earnings ratio of 43.1-times 2017 earnings, this is more than double the FTSE 250 ratio

Acquisition
RNS
RNS Number : 0200U
Keywords Studios PLC
19 October 2017
 
19th October 2017
 
 
Keywords Studios plc ("Keywords", "the Group")
 
Acquisition of d3t Ltd
Expansion of Engineering Service Line
 
Keywords Studios, the international technical services provider to the global video games industry, today announces that it has acquired d3t ltd ("d3t"), for a total consideration of £3 million from the founders Jamie Campbell and Stephen Powell and others (the "Sellers").
 
Based in the North West of England, between Liverpool and Manchester, d3t delivers premium quality outsourced software development services for video game developers and publishers internationally.
 
The acquisition of d3t is in line with Keywords Studios' strategy to grow organically and by acquisition as it selectively consolidates the highly fragmented market for video game services.  d3t brings additional skills, client relationships and geographic reach to Keywords, extending the strength and scale of its recently established Engineering service line.
 
Founded in 2011 and now employing 44 staff, d3t is an award-winning software development company with capabilities including HD re-mastering, porting, optimisation, rendering and game systems development. Over the course of the last six years they have delivered consistent high quality across dozens of projects for clients such as SEGA, Codemasters, Sony XDev and the BBC.
 
Jamie Campbell and Stephen Powell, along with the rest of d3t team, will remain with the business.  
 
In the year ended 31st of July 2017, d3t achieved revenues of £2.8 million and an underlying adjusted pre-tax profit of £0.4 million.
 
Under the terms of the acquisition Keywords is paying a consideration comprised of £2.4m in cash and the issue of 42,368 new ordinary shares in Keywords, which will be subject to a two-year lock in period.  
 
Application has been made to the London Stock Exchange for the admission of 42,368 new ordinary shares to trading on AIM. Admission of the new shares is expected to take place at 8.00am on 24 October 2017. The Company's total issued share capital following admission will consist of 56,211,141 ordinary shares of one pence each with one voting right per share. The above figure of 56,211,141 may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they can determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the Company following admission.
 
 
Giacomo Duranti, Chief Operating Officer, commented:
"The acquisition of d3t complements our recent acquisition GameSim's capabilities to extend the services, scale and geographical presence of our Engineering offering. With increasing demand in the video games industry for reliable, high-quality outsourced software engineering services, we are building a strong offering to support our clients globally.
 
We are delighted to welcome the highly talented and experienced team at d3t to the Keywords family and we look forward to working closely together to build upon the company's excellent reputation, track record and client relationships."
 
 
Jamie Campbell commented:
"We are delighted to be joining the Keywords Group. d3t was founded with the sole aim of being an invaluable external development partner to the games industry and other interactive sectors. Over the course of six years we have become leaders in the field of high-value engineering offering a professional, wide ranging service.
 
We feel there is a great deal of synergy with Keywords' strategy to be the very best technical service provider to the video games industry, and we look forward to our continued expansion as part of the Group."

Keywords to acquire VMC
StockMarketWire.com
Keywords Studios has announced that the Company has entered into a conditional agreement with Volt Information Sciences to acquire VMC Consulting Corporation and Volt Canada Inc. (collectively VMC) for around $66.4m.

The Company said the proposed deal remains subject to certain working capital adjustments.

The Consideration and working capital adjustments and related transaction costs are intended to be funded by a fully underwritten cash placing of approximately £75m (before expenses) of new ordinary shares in the capital of the Company.

Keywords added:

The Board believes that the Acquisition has a compelling strategic and financial rationale as it:

- Brings to the Group a leading provider of Functional Testing and Customer Support in North America, with adjusted revenue of USD $57.4 million and adjusted EBITDA of USD $6.4 million on an annualised basis in the year to October 2017[1]

- Increases Keywords' market share and footprint, growing Functional Testing and more than doubling the size of its Customer Support offering, in the key North American market

- Adds a business of scale, with a reputation for a high quality service and a strong, blue chip client base

- Has an attractive 'Embedded Technical Services' offering, wherein VMC manages various technical services within its clients' premises through long-standing client relationships. The Board believes this service affords the Group the opportunity to cross-sell Keywords' broader services to VMC's client base, including as embedded services, and to offer VMC's embedded service model to its own major clients

- Is recognised in the market as being the "go-to" outsourced manager of crowd-based testing of games by vetted private individuals through its 'Global Beta Test Network' which is attractive to Keywords and offers material cross selling and roll-out opportunities

- Is expected to benefit from being part of a group focused on similar services and with global reach (as opposed to being part of a broader staffing business)

- Should deliver, in the view of management, material cross-selling, cost saving and margin improvement opportunities under Keywords' management

- Is expected to be significantly earnings enhancing in the first full year

The Acquisition is expected to be completed on or around 30 October 2017, conditional upon, amongst other things, completion of the Placing.

Andrew Day, Chief Executive of Keywords, commented:

"We're thrilled to announce the acquisition of VMC which, as our largest acquisition to date, represents an important milestone in our strategy to selectively consolidate the fragmented video games market and generate synergies through scale in certain services and geographies.

"VMC is an organisation we've admired for several years for its reputation, scale and high quality service as well as its attractive embedded technical services and crowd-based testing services.

"With secure testing labs in Seattle and Montreal, very close to Keywords own studios, we expect to be able to leverage the strengths of both organisations while achieving significant cost synergies to deliver profit performance similar to that of the rest of the Group.

"We look forward to working with the team at VMC to support their growth as part of a group providing similar services as we realise the benefits of combining our complementary services and locations into what we believe will be a compelling offering for our broadened client base not only in North America but also internationally."



At 1:38pm: (LON:KWS) Keywords Studios share price was +50p at 1437p


Story provided by StockMarketWire.com

That's a biggy. And the placing was snapped up rapidly. Several other acquisitions in the pipeline apparently, but this one looks seriously important in the company's growth plan.

Yes very rapidly, in two hours all shares snapped up. :-))

13:00 25/10/2017
Broker Forecast - Numis issues a broker note on Keywords Studios
Numis today upgrades its investment rating on Keywords Studios (LON:KWS) to buy (from hold) and set its price target at 1865p. Story provided by StockMarketWire.com
12:20 25/10/2017

Broker Forecast - finnCap issues a broker note on Keywords Studios
finnCap today upgrades its investment rating on Keywords Studios (LON:KWS) to buy (from hold) and raised its price target to 1677p (from 1325p). Story provided by StockMarketWire.com

Grief...PE ratio= 136 looks likely shares are too expensive....
Just how many game-developers need translations? - and why aren't they using local linguists?
finnCap must know something I can't fathom....

Acquisition
RNS
RNS Number : 1893Z
Keywords Studios PLC
13 December 2017
 
13th December 2017
 
 
Keywords Studios plc ("Keywords", "the Group")
 
Acquisition of Sperasoft
Services Extended into Co-Development, expanding Engineering Service Line
Entry into Eastern Europe
 
Keywords Studios, the international technical services provider to the global video games industry, today announces that it has acquired Sperasoft Inc and Sperasoft Studio LLC (together, "Sperasoft"), for a total consideration of $27 million from the founders Igor Efremov, Alexei Kudriashov and Mark Rizzo (the "Sellers").
 
Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Sperasoft provides game development, art creation and software engineering services to video game developers and publishers around the world from its production studios in St Petersburg and Volgograd, Russia and Krakow, Poland. 
 
Founded in 2004, Sperasoft employs 400 software engineers and artists. The company offers a full range of services for initial game development as well as developing games in live operations.  Specifically, these services include:
 
·     Full game development and co-development in which Sperasoft will develop the game or an area of the game on behalf of the game company, including creating the art assets for the game.
·     Live operations in which Sperasoft develops new features and downloadable content packages to ensure the games they support continue to keep players excited and engaged.
·     Server side infrastructure development and network operations support in helping build and maintain massive online platforms to support multiplayer online games.
·     Porting and remastering services in which Sperasoft will adapt a game to run on a different platform or upgrade a game for an older generation platform to a run on current generation devices including the remastering of the art and animation.
 
Over the years, Sperasoft has delivered consistent high quality work for its clients including Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Warner Bros and Riot Games. For instance, the company is proud of the recent work of its St Petersburg studio, which worked alongside five of Ubisoft's internal studios to develop Assassin's Creed: Origins, which launched to critical acclaim on 27th October 2017.
 
The acquisition of Sperasoft is in line with Keywords Studios' strategy to grow organically and by acquisition as it selectively consolidates the highly fragmented market for video game services.  Sperasoft adds considerable expertise and scale to Keywords new and growing Engineering Services business and adds additional scale to the Art creation business.  In joining the Group, Sperasoft also provides Keywords with production centres and supporting management in Russia and Poland which are important locations for video game services talent across all of Keywords service lines.
 
Igor, Alexei, Mark and the rest of the Sperasoft team will remain with the business and assist the wider group with its growth plans in Engineering Services and in developing the wider business within Eastern Europe.  
 
Sperasoft has grown steadily over the years increasing revenues from $10.4m in 2015 to $16m in 2016. It is anticipated to grow to approximately $20m for the year ending 31 December 2017. The underlying adjusted EBITDA for 2017 is expected to be approximately $2m.
 
Under the terms of the acquisition, which is expected to be earnings enhancing in the first year, Keywords is paying a total consideration of $27m. This is being satisfied by $22m in cash, $1.0m of which is deferred until the first anniversary of the acquisition, funded from the Group's existing resources. The remainder is being satisfied by the issue of 260,049 new ordinary shares in Keywords, which will be issued to the Sellers on the first anniversary of the acquisition and will then be subject to orderly market provisions for a further 12 months.
 
 
Andrew Day, Chief Executive Officer of Keywords Studios, commented:
"The acquisition of Sperasoft provides us with an entry point into co-development, positioning us as a strategic partner to games developers at the early stages of the games development lifecycle. As games are becoming bigger and are higher definition, game developers are increasingly relying upon co-development arrangements with companies like Sperasoft to provide them with broader capability to develop both initial games and additional content and features post launch.
 
"Sperasoft adds considerably to our engineering services division which we intend to continue to build organically and through acquisition, as well as significantly enlarging our range of services and geographic footprint.
 
"We are delighted to welcome Sperasoft to the Keywords family and we look forward to working closely with their highly talented team to build upon their strong industry reputation and relationships with some of the world's leading games developers and publishers."
 
 
Igor Efremov, Chief Executive Officer of Sperasoft, commented:
"We are delighted to be joining Keywords Studios in a union that we believe will enable Sperasoft to grow and expand our offering to our existing partners as part of a larger group. We look forward to working with other members of the Group as we are confident that our vision and commitment to providing the very best support to the video games industry is very much aligned."
 

Keywords Studios: Berenberg reiterates Buy with a target price of 2020p.

Trading Statement
RNS
RNS Number : 5685D
Keywords Studios PLC
01 February 2018

1 February 2018


Keywords Studios plc
("Keywords Studios", "the Group")

Full year trading update

Strong financial performance- strengthening our market leading position

Keywords Studios, the international technical services provider to the global video games industry, today provides an unaudited trading update for the year ended 31 December 2017, following a year of further strong organic growth and geographic expansion, complemented by a number of significant and successful acquisitions.

The Board is pleased to announce that it expects revenues to be not less than €150m (FY16: €96.6m) and adjusted PBT* of at least €22.5m (FY16: €14.9m), both of which are comfortably ahead of consensus market expectations. Strong organic growth remains a feature of the Group's performance and this has been supplemented by acquisitions as the Group continues to deliver on its strategy in order to become the "go to" supplier of technical services to the global video games industry. The Group is now comprised of seven globally managed service lines operating from 42 production studios in 20 countries, compared to four service lines operating from five production studios in five countries at the time of our IPO in July 2013.

During the year, we welcomed eleven businesses into the Group across all its existing service lines as well as its newly established Engineering service line. 2017 saw two of the Group's largest acquisitions to date, VMC and Sperasoft, which have further strengthened our service offerings and client penetration and extended our geographic reach and access to talent. Sperasoft enabled our entry into Co-Development, in which multiple services including game programming and art creation are delivered holistically in the game development phase, whilst VMC has bolstered our Engineering capabilities. These significant acquisitions represent yet further steps in the pursuit of our strategy and we are pleased with how smoothly they are being integrated with the rest of the Group.

The Group has invested net cash of €89.1m in the acquisitions described above, funded by the Group's strong cash generation, available debt facilities and a successful £75m equity placing in October 2017. The placing further demonstrated the support of our existing shareholders as well as enhancing our shareholder base through the addition of a number of new institutional investors. Following these acquisitions, the Group had €30.5m in cash at the year end and had utilised €18.3m of its €35m rolling credit facility, which leaves the Group well placed to complete further selective acquisitions in 2018.

The Group's effective tax rate has continued to decrease as we make better use of our brands, operating models and tools from our Dublin operational headquarters in support of our business around the world, much of which is in higher tax rate jurisdictions including Canada, the US, Japan, India and Italy. The Group's effective tax rate based on Keywords Studios' measure of profit before taxation in the period was 20.5% (2016: 21.7%). We note the enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in the United States on 22 December 2017. Our preliminary view is that we can expect a devaluation of some of our deferred tax liabilities in 2017 due to the reduction in the statutory federal tax rate to 21%. While we continue to review the full future impact of the new US tax legislation on the Group, we currently anticipate that the changes will not have a material impact on the Group's effective tax rate. We will give updated guidance on the impact of these provisions together with our final results later this year.

Andrew Day, Chief Executive of Keywords, commented:
"We are delighted with the Group's performance as we grew revenues and profits strongly again this year. Our ever-increasing geographic footprint and broader range of services have combined to grow market share, introduce additional services to established clients and win new clients.

"The eleven acquisitions in 2017 demonstrate strong progress in our strategy to selectively consolidate the fragmented video games market and generate synergies through scale, and our entry into Engineering and particularly Co-Development, enhances our positioning as a strategic partner to game developers and publishers, whilst continuing to ensure we are not directly exposed to the commercial performance of individual titles. As games are becoming bigger and are higher definition, game developers are increasingly relying upon co-development arrangements with companies like Keywords to provide them with broader capability to develop both initial games and ongoing content and features post-launch.

"We look forward to another year of strong progress as we continue to invest in existing and new businesses, building our talent pool and integrating the newer members of our Group."


*The Group reports adjusted PBT before acquisition and integration expenses, share option charges, amortisation of intangibles and foreign currency gains

.
Keywords studios: Berenberg reiterates buy with a target price of 2,040p

08:10 26/03/2018
Broker Forecast - Peel Hunt issues a broker note on Keywords Studios
Peel Hunt today initiates coverage of Keywords Studios (LON:KWS) with a accumulate investment rating and price target of 1850p. Story provided by StockMarketWire.com Broker Forecasts data provided by www.sharesmagazine.co.uk

Final Results
RNS
RNS Number : 1944K
Keywords Studios PLC
09 April 2018



9 April 2018


Keywords Studios plc ("Keywords", "the Group")

Full year results for the year to 31 December 2017

Another excellent performance reflecting strong organic and acquisitive growth

Keywords Studios, the international technical services provider to the global video games industry, today provides its full year results for the year to 31 December 2017.

Financial overview:
· Group revenue (including effect of acquisitions) increased by 57% to €151.4m (2016: €96.6m)
· Adjusted EBITDA* up 57% to €26.3m (2016: €16.7m), representing a margin of 17.4% (2016: 17.3%)
· Adjusted profit before tax* increased by 55% to €23.0m (2016: €14.9m)
· Adjusted basic earnings per share* up by 52% to 31.18c (2016: 20.59c)
· Adjusted operating cash generation** increase of 48% to €21.9m (2016: €14.8m)
· Net cash*** of €11.1m (2016: €8.7m)
· Final dividend of 0.98p (2016: 0.89p); 10% increase in total dividend to 1.46p per share (2016: 1.33p)

Operational overview:
· 15.1% increase in like for like**** revenue
· 11 acquisitions completed to expand our existing services lines (including a new engineering service line) and extend our geographical reach, including our two largest acquisitions to date:
o Acquisition of VMC in October for $66.4m giving the Group leadership in functional testing in North America, significantly increased our presence in player support services, added new service delivery models including Embedded Technical Services and the Global Beta Test Network
o Acquisition of Sperasoft in December for $27m brought strength in co-development, extended our Engineering and Art capabilities, and provided entry points into Eastern Europe
· Good progress made with integrating acquisitions, with multiple operations being integrated together in Paris, Mexico City, Seattle and Madrid
· Invested in adding capacity for organic growth across multiple studios
o Continued success in cross-selling our extended services with a 45% increase in clients using three or more services from 64 to 93

*before acquisition and integration expenses of €3.0m (2016: €1.3m), share option charges of €1.4m (2016: €0.7m), amortisation of intangibles of €3.0m (2016: €1.6m), and foreign currency exchange loss of €3.6m (2016: loss of €1.7m)
**cash flow from operations plus acquisition related expenses of €3.0 (2016: €1.3m), plus exceptional working capital costs related to the VMC acquisition of €3.0m (2016: nil), plus €2.3m in VMC receipts held by a third party on behalf of the Group and passed to the Group post year end. In the comparative year, multimedia tax credits (MMTC) of €1.6m were received in respect of claims prior to 2015
***after payment of €87.0m net cash consideration for acquisitions (2016: €21.1m), €3.0m of acquisition costs and integration expenses (2016: €1.3m), and £75.0m raised (before expenses) via an equity placing (2016: nil).
**** calculated on the basis of revenues being included for 2017 acquisitions from the date of acquisition and for the equivalent period in the prior year.

Current trading and outlook:
· Acquisitions announced separately today:
o Cord Worldwide Limited and Laced Music Limited for a total consideration of £4.5m
o Maximal Studio for an initial cash consideration of €0.3m and €0.2m deferred subject to performance
· The typically quieter first quarter has seen activity levels in line with our expectations and the positive momentum in the business gives us confidence in the outcome for the full year
· Encouraging early wins for new co-development services
· Agreed heads of terms for a revolving credit facility of up to €105m
· Acquisition pipeline remains healthy

Andrew Day, Chief Executive of Keywords Studios, commented:

"The Group has delivered another strong performance with good organic growth supplemented by a number of acquisitions including two of our largest acquisitions to date.

"Our organic investment and acquisitions have added significant scale to our existing service lines and extended both our service range and geographical reach, establishing a new Engineering service line, bringing additional capabilities in co-development, content management, and delivering services from within clients' premises, and providing us with a presence in Eastern Europe.

"We entered 2018 with pro forma revenues of €225m, across seven service lines and 42 studios in four continents, compared to just over €16m derived from four service lines and five studios in 2013 - the year of our IPO.

"We expect to make continued strong progress as we realise the full benefits of our enhanced services platform and with the financing in place to support further organic and acquisitive growth in 2018."

A presentation of the full year results will be made to analysts at 9.30am today at MHP's offices. There will also be a live, listen only webcast of the presentation and a recording will be made available via www.keywordsstudios.com. To register for access, please contact Charles Hirst at MHP Communications on +44 20 3128 8193 or email keywords@mhpc.com.

08:00 10/04/2018
Broker Forecast - Peel Hunt issues a broker note on Keywords Studios
Peel Hunt today reaffirms its add investment rating on Keywords Studios (LON:KWS) and set its price target at 1850p. Story provided by StockMarketWire.com Broker Forecasts data provided by www.sharesmagazine.co.uk

SMALL CAP SHARE IDEAS: Video games outsourcing firm Keywords Studios expands amid growing industry
By Philip Whiterow, Proactive Investors, For Thisismoney.co.uk
Published: 12:49, 23 April 2018 | Updated: 16:47, 23 April 2018


Keywords Studios operates in the highly fragmented world of ancillary services for computer games makers and is rapidly becoming the 800lb gorilla of that sector.
The company is trusted and relied upon as a partner by many of the world’s leading video game companies during the concept, development and post-publication phases of new content.
Localisation is the core of the business. Essentially this means translation into local language and ensuring the audio quality, player support and so on is up to scratch.
Growth recently has been rapid and global with facilities now in multiple locations across four continents.

Growing industry: Keywords Studios offers ancillary services to computer games makers
Andrew Day chief executive said: ‘We entered 2018 with pro forma revenues of €225million, across seven service lines and 42 studios in four continents, compared to just over €16million derived from four service lines and five studios in 2013 - the year of our IPO’.
By its own admission, Keywords has a big appetite for acquisitions.
Management likes to make six small bolt-on acquisitions each year and one or two larger purchases.

Examples of ‘larger purchases’ include North America-focused VMC Consulting, which it bought for $66million last October, financed by an underwritten share placing.
The new shares were sold through a book-build exercise and snapped up in about two hours, which underlines how highly regarded is the video games services group at present.
Shares over the last three years have rocketed from 153p to 1,746p as the carefully built portfolio, which ranges from translation services through to augmented and virtual reality services, has driven large rises in sales and earnings.

VMC looks to be more of the same. Keywords expects the latest addition to be ‘significantly earnings enhancing’ almost immediately.
Adjusted revenue of the US group in the year to October was $57.4million and underlying profits an annualised $6.4million.
The purchase will more than double Keywords' customer support operation in the North American market as well as growing market share and footprint.
Cross-selling has been a fundamental plank of the strategy and the number of clients using three or more of Keywords’ services increased to 93 in 2017 from 64 in 2016 and 51 in 2015.
German bank Berenberg, which rates the shares a ‘buy’ and has a price target of 2,060p, sees this trend as evidence that computer games publishers and developers are moving away from ‘tactical outsourcing’ towards strategic arrangements with trusted partners.
Crucially, it has made its first inroads into the eSports market, mostly through the provision of its services for game development and in-game support, but also via marketing.
ESports – football, rugby, Formula One to name three - are played electronically by teams with increasingly large numbers of people watching.
By 2020, the market is tipped to be generating £1billion annually in revenues and, like video games, there is a requirement for localisation and consistent quality.

ESports – football, rugby, Formula One to name three - are played electronically by teams with increasingly large numbers of people watching
Keywords highlights that it is continuing to seek out ways to ‘leverage the growth in eSports further,’ Berenberg observed.
The most recent acquisitions have focused on adding extra music and audio services to the group’s offering.
Cord Worldwide and Laced Music were acquired from the Cutting Edge Group for £4.5million and Maximal Studio from its owners for up to €500,000.
Being able to offer music services to clients will further enhance its reputation as the leading provider of services to the global video games industry, Keywords said.
Results for 2017 further underlined the rapid progress. Group revenue rose 57 per cent to €151.4million while adjusted profit before tax jumped 55 per cent to €23million. There was a dividend of 1.46p, up from 1.33p in 2016, but this not an income stock, far from it.
The share price of 1,685p points to an earnings multiple of 35 this year.
Like the well-backed share placing, this rating suggests the market has more than a degree of confidence that growth will continue.
As for current trading, Keywords noted that the first quarter is traditionally one where the video games industry takes a breather and that activity levels are currently in line with expectations.
Forecasts in the market point to sales nudging $250million and profits €37million, again, both substantial increases.
True, the current rating allows little margin for error but so far there has been little evidence of Keywords missing its footing and in markets growing so rapidly that still looks to be an opportunity.

Acquisition
RNS
RNS Number : 5983P
Keywords Studios PLC
30 May 2018

30 May 2018


Keywords Studios plc ("Keywords", "the Group")

Acquisition of Fire Without Smoke

Strengthening the Group's Art Services Line


Keywords Studios, the international technical services provider to the global video games industry, today announces that it has acquired Fire Without Smoke Ltd ("Fire Without Smoke") for a total consideration of up to £5.2m from the founders Will O'Connor, Michael David Thomson and others (the "Sellers").

Headquartered in London and with a studio in Montreal, Fire Without Smoke provides a full suite of creative and marketing services to game publishers and developers, creating assets such as game trailers, marketing art and materials for esports events, and providing marketing consultancy and general design services to the video game industry.

Founded in 2013 and now with [40] staff between London and Montréal, Fire Without Smoke works with major game publishers such as Sony, Square Enix, Riot Games, Deep Silver, Sega, Capcom and Ubisoft.

Will O'Connor will continue as Managing Director and the other founders, together with the rest of the talented team, will also remain with the business.

For the year ending 31 May 2018, Fire Without Smoke is expected to have revenues of £2.8m and adjusted profits before tax of £0.7m.

Under the terms of the acquisition Keywords is paying a consideration comprised of £3.85m in cash, £0.5m of which is deferred until the first anniversary of acquisition and subject to certain performance targets, and the issue of 77,006 new ordinary shares in Keywords, which will be issued to the Sellers on the first anniversary of the acquisition and will then be subject to orderly market provisions for a further 12 months.

Andrew Day, CEO of Keywords Studios commented:

"Fire Without Smoke's specialised offering represents an excellent addition to the Group's existing capabilities and adds some exciting new services to our global service platform. Their high end video game trailers expertise will be of great interest to Keywords' large client base, as will their broad suite of creative services, which range from marketing strategy to providing marketing content for events including esports tournaments, which can play a significant role in influencing the success of event and game launches.

"We are delighted to welcome the talented and passionate teams of Fire Without Smoke to the Keywords family as we continue to build the business in London, in Montreal and in other Keywords locations around the world."

New Revolving Credit Facility
RNS
RNS Number : 2610Q
Keywords Studios PLC
05 June 2018

05 June 2018

Keywords Studios plc ("Keywords", "the Group")

New Revolving Credit Facility for up to €105m agreed


Keywords Studios, the international technical services provider to the global video games industry, today confirms the completion of a new revolving credit facility, in line with the terms outlined in the Group's full year results announcement on 9 April 2018.

The new facility is being provided by Barclays Bank plc, HSBC Bank plc and Lloyds Banking Group plc for an initial €75m over a three-year term, with the option to extend the facility up to €105m and by a further two years. It replaces the existing €35m facility and is on improved terms.

Andrew Day, Chief Executive of Keywords Studios, commented:

"We are pleased to have finalised this significantly expanded facility, on terms which improve upon our previous arrangement, in line with our intention of maintaining a conservative mix of equity and debt funding to support our investments in both the underlying business and new activities.

"We have made 4 acquisitions to date this year and, over the last twelve months, we have invested to substantially expand our capacity across six existing and five new facilities.

"We are reviewing a strong pipeline of acquisition candidates and organic investment opportunities as we continue to build our business organically and through acquisition. This facility gives us the flexibility and headroom to act on our investment decisions whilst continuing to enhance shareholder value."

Acquisition
RNS
RNS Number : 8634Q
Keywords Studios PLC
11 June 2018

11 June 2018


Keywords Studios plc ("Keywords", "the Group")

Acquisition of Blindlight

Keywords goes to Hollywood


Keywords Studios, the international technical services provider to the global video games industry, today announces that it has acquired Blindlight LLC ("Blindlight") for a total consideration of up to $10m, from the founder, Lev Chapelsky (the "Seller").

Founded in 2001 and based in Hollywood, California, Blindlight enjoys a leading position in the provision of Hollywood production services for the video games industry. The company works on behalf of game publishers and developers in procuring specialised talent and managing the entire production processes for the parts of games that benefit from Hollywood production resources. Blindlight's service disciplines include voiceover production, celebrity acquisition and rights management, game writing, music, sound design and motion capture.

Blindlight works with top game producers around the world (including Bethesda, NCSoft, Sony Interactive Entertainment, and Ubisoft) making the creative expertise of Hollywood readily available for the video games industry. The addition of Blindlight to the Group will increase the value of the services provided by Keywords and contribute to making those services more accessible to a wider customer base.

Blindlight achieved EBITDA of an average of $1m per annum over the three-year period to 31 December 2017. Under the terms of the acquisition Keywords is paying an initial $3.64m in cash and will issue 64,521 new ordinary shares in Keywords to the Seller on the first anniversary of the acquisition which will then be subject to orderly market provisions for a further 12 months. Deferred consideration of up to $4.8m will be payable to the Seller in cash depending on the performance of the business in the 12-month periods to the first and second anniversaries of the acquisition.

Andrew Day, CEO of Keywords Studios commented:

"Keywords and Blindlight have got to know each other well over the past three years and we see good opportunities to leverage both businesses to offer a wider range of world leading services to our clients. We are delighted to welcome Lev and the rest of the team to the Keywords family.

"Following our recent acquisition of music services companies, Cord Worldwide and Laced, we see excellent opportunities for Blindlight to bring these services to Los Angeles, as well as providing access to further opportunities for our downstream production services of translation and localised voice over."

A clip about the company in todays DM

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