Latham & Watkins advises Tencent in its minority investment in Voodoo

Tencent, a leading technology company and operator of the largest online games platform in China, has become a minority shareholder in Voodoo, a world leader in “hyper-casual” games with an enterprise value of US$1.4 billion (€1.2 billion).

Voodoo was founded in Paris in 2013 by Alexandre Yazdi, CEO, and Laurent Ritter. Alexandre Yazdi will remain the largest shareholder and, together with management, will retain control of the group. 

Voodoo, a worldwide leader, has global reach, and partnering with Tencent will help the company achieve its strategy of growing and adapting its games for the Asian market and fulfil its ambition to expand into casual games. 

Latham advised Tencent in the transaction with a team lead by Paris corporate partner Pierre-Louis Cléro, with associates Xavier Nassoy, Yiran Bai, Xiaocai Fu, Julia Lefevre, and Morgane Chaloin. Advice was also provided by partner Jean-Luc Juhan on commercial contracts; partner Lionel Dechmann on financing ; partner Jacques-Philippe Gunther, with associates Mathilde Ayel, Juliette Raffaitin in Paris and Clément Pradille, on antitrust; partner Matthias Rubner, with associate Jad Clam on employment law; and partner Myria Saarinen, with associate Floriane Cruchet on intellectual property and data protection (GDPR) matters.