Rovio launches onto the stock market with €900m valuation

Angry Birds app publisher Rovio has made its debut on the Finnish stock market, with its 37.1m public shares initially priced at €11.50 (£10.16).

This is the upper limit of the range Rovio announced earlier this month, valuing the company at €896m – significantly short of reports last month which put the expected valuation at around the $2bn (€1.7bn, £1.5bn) mark.

However, the company yesterday reported that the initial offering was over-subscribed, and prices soared like some manner of furious fowl in early trading, to a high of €12.34. The price has since followed the familiar parabola of the developers most famous creations, dropping to a low of €11.48.

“We feel extremely happy and honoured to have received so much interest towards Rovio’s IPO both by Finnish and international investors,” said CEO Kati Levoranta. “Todays listing on Nasdaq Helsinki is an important milestone in developing Rovio into an even stronger games-first entertainment company.”

That games-first description is at odds with the way Rovio had previously been positioning itself, as it made a high-profile play to become the next Disney. As well as the Angry Bird Movie released last year, the company has tried its hand with virtually every kind of merchandise imaginable, as well as theme parks across the globe. Despite these efforts, Rovios brand licensing division is still dwarfed by its apps, which make up 79 per cent of revenues.