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Report: Carlyle exploring sale or IPO for RuneScape maker Jagex

Report: Carlyle exploring sale or IPO for RuneScape maker Jagex

Investment giant Carlyle Group is reportedly looking into either selling RuneScape maker Jagex or taking the company public.

That's according to Reuters, which reports that Carlyle is valuing the Cambridge games firm as high as £1 billion ($1.25 billion). Morgan Stanley and Aream & Co are apparently advising on the matter.

Carlyle Group acquired Jagex at the start of 2021. Before 2016, the RuneScape maker was independent, though took on investment from Insight Venture Partners in 2005 – which saw the firm buy 25 per cent of the company – with the firm's stake growing to 55 per cent in 2012. In 2016, Chinese company Shanghai Fukong bought Jagex, before the firm was snapped up by Macarthur Fortune four years later.

Jagex is best-known for RuneScape, which has been running since 2001. The company also runs the retro-themed fan-pleaser Old School RuneScape, in addition to operating a publishing label called Jagex Partners.

PCGamesInsider.biz has reached out to Jagex for comment.

Disclaimer: Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist and writer that has worked with Jagex in the past on RuneScape: The First 20 Years.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.