Gaming major Nazara Technologies’ subsidiary, Absolute Sports, announced that it has acquired the assets of US-based Soap Central.
The deal involves a full cash payment of $1.4 million (approximately Rs11.6 crore) and is anticipated to be finalised within the next 30 days. Absolute Sports plans to finance the transaction using its cash reserves.
Started in 1995, Soap Central is a source of entertainment content in the USA. The company says that they bring the latest “soap opera news, recaps, scoops, interviews, and more.” In the calendar year 2023, Soap Central generated revenues of $621,000 (around INR 5.2 crore).
After the acquisition, Nazar’s stock price has surged. At the time of writing this copy, the company’s stock price rose by 16 percent to Rs 809 a piece. Previously, it closed at Rs 697.25.
With the acquisition, Absolute Sports aims to position itself as a prominent publisher focused on sports and entertainment in the US market. In a regulatory filing, the company said, “The company expects to unlock massive synergies with its content scaling and operating playbooks to establish Soap Central as a leading entertainment content destination for fans in the US.”
Read: Nazara Promoter Mitter Infotech Sells 6.38% Stake in Block Deal to Plutus Wealth Management
Speaking about the acquisition, Ajay Pratap Singh, CEO of Absolute Sports, said, “The entertainment publishing industry is more than twice the size of sports publishing (Similarweb, 2024) and allows us a great canvas for expansion into multiple content categories.”
He further added, “Having tested our content publishing and hyper-growth playbook with the acquisition of Pro Football Network last year, we are confident of scaling Soap Central in a very short time.”
Founded in 2009, Absolute Sports is a global sports media platform that covers sports and esports topics and reaches over 100 million followers monthly through its main brand, Sportskeeda.com. The publicly traded, diverse gaming platform Nazara acquired the bulk of Absolute Sports Private Limited in 2019.
