Unity have officially said no to the $20B merger offer from AppLovin the received unsolicited on August 10th. They also announced they will be continuing with the previously announced ironSource merger, a company very similar in scope and operation to AppLovin.
Details of the announcement from Business Wire:
Unity (NYSE: U) (the “Company”) today announced that its Board of Directors (the “Board”) has completed a thorough financial and strategic evaluation of the unsolicited proposal from AppLovin (NASDAQ: APP), with the assistance of outside financial and legal advisors, and has unanimously determined that it is not in the best interests of Unity shareholders and would not reasonably be expected to result in a “Superior Proposal” as defined in Unity’s merger agreement with ironSource (NYSE: IS). The Unity Board reaffirms its recommendation to Unity’s shareholders to vote in favor of the previously announced ironSource transaction and recommends against the unsolicited AppLovin proposal. The Unity Board is committed to acting in the best interests of Unity shareholders with a focus on driving long-term sustainable value creation.
John Riccitiello, President and Chief Executive Officer of Unity, said, “The Board continues to believe that the ironSource transaction is compelling and will deliver an opportunity to generate long-term value through the creation of a unique end-to-end platform that allows creators to develop, publish, run, monetize, and grow live games and real-time 3D content seamlessly. We remain committed to and enthusiastic about Unity’s agreement with ironSource and the substantial benefits it will create for our shareholders and Unity creators.”
Since the announcement, Unity shares dropped by over 7%, although the over all share price is up from before they received the offer. You can learn more about the AppLovin offer and the Unity rejection of it in the video below.