Hachette Livre, a subsidiary of Lagardère SA, will strengthen its boardgames division with the acquisition of a controlling stake in the leading French studio La Boîte de Jeu

Hachette Livre, a subsidiary of Lagardère SA, will strengthen its boardgames division with the acquisition of a controlling stake in the leading French studio La Boîte de Jeu

(PRESS RELEASE) VANVES, France, 23-Feb-2022 — /EuropaWire/ — Hachette Livre, a subsidiary of Lagardère SA and the world’s third-largest trade and educational publishing group, has announced the the acquisition of a controlling stake in La Boîte de Jeu, an independent French board game publishing company founded in 2013 by Benoit Bannier, Benjamin Carayon and Timothée Gibelin, and based in Arceau, France. The studio, La Boîte de Jeu, has enjoyed rapid growth with games such as “Cerbère” and “It’s a Wonderful World”, but also by developing expertise in launching new products using the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. La Boîte de Jeu’s current catalogue comprises around 20 games, mainly aimed at fans of strategy games.

Together with his team, Benoit Bannier will remain at the helm of La Boîte de Jeu and will continue developing the company, working alongside Isabelle Jeuge-Maynart, CEO of Hachette Boardgames, who will become its chairman.

Hachette Livre’s acquisition of a controlling stake in this leading studio will strengthen the Hachette Boardgames division. La Boîte de Jeu will perfectly complement the product offering of Hachette Boardgames’ existing studios : Funnyfox (generalist), Studio H (strategy and family), Sorry We Are French (strategy and family), Le Scorpion Masqué (family and party), Hiboutatillus (party) and Gigamic (family). The games of La Boîte de Jeu products are already distributed by Blackrock Games, which is also part of Hachette Boardgames.

La Boîte de Jeu should also be able to capitalise on the expertise of Benoit Bannier and his team in Kickstarter to launch new projects, in order to develop consultancy services for Hachette Livre’s own studios and also other studios, to help them with their crowdfunding projects.

The transaction is subject to certain customary conditions precedent and should be completed by the end of February 2022.

Hachette Livre press contact

• Magali Hamonic – Assistant to the Communications Department – mhamonic@hachette-livre.fr – +33 (0)6 74 08 12 32

Hachette Boardgames

Hachette Boardgames is a division of Hachette Livre. It comprises boardgame publishers and distributors Gigamic, Blackrock Games and Randolph, but also creative studios Funnyfox, Studio H, Le Scorpion Masqué and Sorry We Are French, along with Hiboutatillus, publisher of Blanc Manger Coco. Many games in the Hachette Boardgames portfolio have won awards: Oriflamme (Studio H), As d’or 2020; Roulapik (Gigamic), Kinderspiel des Jahres 2020; and Micro Macro (distributed by Blackrock), As d’or 2021 and Spiel des Jahres 2021.

Hachette Livre

Hachette Livre is a subsidiary of Lagardère SA and the world’s third-largest trade and educational publishing group. With revenue of €2,598 million in 2021, it is the market leader in France, as well as ranking second in the UK, third in Spain and fourth in the US (in trade publishing). Hachette Livre has around 100 houses that together publish in the region of 17,000 new titles per year in more than 10 languages, mainly French, English and Spanish. The group covers all segments of the mainstream publishing market: general fiction and non-fiction, mass-market paperbacks, children’s books, illustrated books, travel guides, school books, study guides and partworks.

SOURCE: Lagardère Group