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This comes after them acquiring 74% of ESL this summer and there were also reports last month of them acquiring ESEA, but nothing official yet.
http://www.mtg.com/press-releases/mtg-acquires-dreamhack/
https://www.dreamhack.se/dhw15/2015/11/12/dreamhack-change-ownership/
http://www.mtg.com/press-releases/mtg-acquires-dreamhack/
MTG has simultaneously agreed and completed the acquisition of DreamHack, which is one of the worlds largest esports companies and organizer of the worlds largest digital festivals DreamHack Summer and DreamHack Winter in Sweden. DreamHack is the leading esports player in Scandinavia and runs both local and global esports leagues, tournaments and championships. The companys seven live events in 2014 attracted a total audience of over 105,000 people, and esports fans have watched 34 million hours of DreamHack content online.
Established in Sweden just over twenty years ago, DreamHack produces and hosts The DreamHack Open European esports championship; the DreamLeague international esports league for Dota 2 players; and the ESPORTSM Swedish national esports championship. DreamHack also organizes live events in Spain, Romania, Russia, France and the United Kingdom, and will for the first time host events in Germany and the US in 2016.
MTG is acquiring 100% of DreamHack for an enterprise value of SEK 244 million, from private investors and the companys management. Management will continue to drive the development of the business. The company generated SEK 69 million of sales in 2014 and was profitable for the full year. It is expected to generate double digit sales growth in 2015.
This investment follows MTGs recent acquisition of 74% of ESL, the worlds largest esports company. MTG also recently invested in Zoomin, Europes largest multi-channel network, and in Splay, the number one multi-channel network in Scandinavia, both of which have large gaming communities and channels.
DreamHack is the leading esports company in Scandinavia and attracts millions of passionate gamers to its online leagues and live events. This complements our recent investment in ESL, and reinforces our commitment to video gaming as one of the most watched and fastest growing online video categories. We are excited about working with DreamHacks talented team to bring this great entertainment to even larger audiences around the world.
Our strategy is to invest in relevant, complementary and scalable digital brands, content and communities. We are creating a digital video entertainment ecosystem and esports is at the very centre of this given its global appeal and huge following.
Jørgen Madsen Lindemann, MTG President and CEO
DreamHack is already Swedens largest digital festival. MTGs investment will not only enable us to consolidate our position, but also accelerate the international expansion of our festivals across the globe. Our vision is to make DreamHack the festival of choice for Millennials everywhere. We have years of experience as an innovative and successful esports organizer and broadcaster, and of making entertaining esports content for both traditional and digital media partners. We have been working closely with MTG for the past two years to grow the esports even further, so we know each other well and look forward to taking our cooperation to a new level.
Marcus Lindmark, DreamHack CEO
https://www.dreamhack.se/dhw15/2015/11/12/dreamhack-change-ownership/
DreamHack has signed an agreement with MTG in which they will acquire 100% of DreamHack AB, the Worlds largest computer festival and one of the Worlds biggest esports companies. MTG is an international entertainment company and is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in Stockholm.
You can break down DreamHacks twenty-one year long history into three chapters. The first chapter started with the foundation of DreamHack back in 1994, when the two founders Martin Öjes and Kenny Eklund hosted the first event with 40 people in a school cafeteria. DreamHack grew exponentially over the years and became the Worlds Largest Computer Festival after three consecutive Guinness World Records.
In 2006, as part of DreamHack changing ownership a first time, DreamHack entered the second chapter in which DreamHack developed the LAN-party to become a Digital Festival, adding tons of new activities, content, music, esports, expo making it a social event for a much wider audience, and also making DreamHack one of Swedens largest youth festivals.
In 2010, DreamHack entered the third chapter in which DreamHack became one of the Worlds largest esports tournament organizers and broadcasters. As one of the first esport partners to Twitch (then called Justin.TV), DreamHack was one of the pioneers pushing esports into a broadcast format optimized for live streaming. Hundreds of millions of watched content later DreamHack has established some of the most well-known esports championships such DreamHack Open, DreamLeague and the Swedish Championship, ESPORTSM. DreamHack also started to expand the festival outside of Sweden, starting with Spain, then Romania, Russia, France, United Kingdom and in the upcoming year DreamHack will enter two of the largest gaming markets in the world Germany and United States.
As part of this development, DreamHack has turned Jönköping and Stockholm into two global hubs for esports. DreamHack has actively been pushing eSports into sports stadiums, giving esports mainstream coverage and convincing more sponsors to support this movement. But most importantly, DreamHack has helped swedish gamers to become the best in the world by giving them a platform of competition in their backyard.
Looking ahead, its time to enter a new chapter. DreamHack has a vision to make DreamHack the no.1 festival for an entire generation of gamers. In order to do this, we want to set-up new DreamHack festivals in more countries and build a strong, stable and sustainable event franchise that can bring the unique DreamHack experience not only to Swedish gamers, but to gamers across the globe.
With the acquisition made by MTG and a long-term commitment from the current management and the key employees of DreamHack, we now feel extremely confident about our plan for the coming years. DreamHack will have an ambitious plan to grow the brand and the festivals. We believe that our new owners can enable a faster international expansion as well as continue to solidify Sweden as one of the main destinations for esports in Europe. This commitment and also the support of MTG can help us develop our festivals to new heights, where DreamHack can be a unique bridge between online and offline.
We see this as our fourth chapter.
DreamHack management remains in charge of the business, and DreamHack will continue both run DreamHack events and DreamHack esports tournaments. The big difference is that we instead of having one large angel investor as the owner, we will have a large international company, specialized in digital entertainment.
DreamHack is built on a true do-it-yourself mentality. Something I experienced as volunteer crew back in 2002 but also now as CEO. As part of that DNA, we have already achieved great things and will continue to do that in the future. But in order to take next leap, from being equal size of a normal swedish music festival and become global event company we believe that MTG is a perfect owner of DreamHack the coming years.
said Marcus Lindmark, CEO of DreamHack.
Esports attracts a lot of different of investors right now, but in MTG we found a Swedish company that share the same entrepreneurial approach as DreamHack.
Were extremely proud about the development we made the last 5 years, but were even more excited and thrilled about the coming 5 years, and how far we can take DreamHack.
said Stefan Magnusson, VP of DreamHack.
DreamHack is entering the most exciting chapter yet, where we get the opportunity to truly develop the DreamHack brand in the direction we only could dream about. MTG have a strong strategy and esports vision, where we can play an important role but DreamHack is also adding something completely unique to that vision.
said Tomas Lyckedal, Business Development Director
About DreamHack
DreamHack is the Worlds Largest Computer Festival. DreamHacks roots and core is the LAN party, with the major events DreamHack Summer and Winter, where participants bring their own computers and connect to the Internet in a large local area network which basically BECOMES the Internet by sheer scale. DreamHack is also Swedens first consumer-oriented trade show / event / festival for computer games, game consoles and computers. The events are a platform for tournaments in eSports, knowledge and creative competitions, concerts by famous music artists, lectures by game developers and much more.
Learn more about DreamHack at: http://www.dreamhack.se