作者：Kim-Mai Cutler

EA和Zynga企业发展人员日前分别分享了几点关于收购开展方式的内部意见。

我摘录日前他们在旧金山Pillsbury（游戏邦注：这是家法律事务所）座谈会讨论的几点看法。

EA企业发展主管Michael Chang、Zynga企业发展团队主管Grant Olsen、Lightspeed Venture Partners总经理Jeremy Liew以及KlickNation（游戏邦注：这家公司现已被EA收购，变成公司旗下Bioware的组成部分）CEO Mark Otero各自谈论公司如何进行收购交易。

acquisitions(from flickr.com)

若干核心观点：

1. 留心自己的早期协议，尤其是和游戏发行相关的协议：有时涉及未来作品的发行协议会扼杀某些收购交易，因为收购者希望团队成员能够立即着手他们的游戏。

Chang表示，“有些公司因签订某些发行协议，令我们对其望而却步。”他举例某家曾签订3款游戏发行协议的公司。“我们需要立即使用这个团队，但此协议将该团队与另外3款游戏绑定。这让他们面临难以抉择的处境。”

2. 聘请优秀律师，促使合约顺利达成：所有座谈会成员都表示，若负责人没有注意合约的内容结构，那么交易多半会以失败告终，因为设计糟糕的合约会使得收购计划无疾而终。“这甚至还包括发明协议，它们有些看起来并没有什么问题，但最后却给公司带来巨大损失。”

3. 选择适合的投资者，否则你可能无法取得预期结果：这点显而易见，座谈会成员列举几个有趣的故事。

Otero表示，KlickNation在推出多款失败的Facebook应用后筹得10万美元资金。现在回过头来看，收购条款之所以不尽合理是因为，他们给予Otero的天使投资人过多潜在除权（exit）控制权。这是个可转换债券投资，其中的利率和最小债额让KlickNation的天使投资人拥有公司10%的股权（公司12月份以3500万美元出售。根据协议内容，天使投资人有望获得20倍的回馈。虽然Otero没有公开姓名，但众所周知的其中一位投资人是Ariva Partners的Robert Simon）。

同时还有关于除权方面的否决权。

Otero表示，“现在回头看，我觉得自己有点摸不着头脑。我到底在想什么？在考虑协议条款的过程中我没有意识到否决权的重要性。它的作用非常惊人。它迫使我们不得不考虑我们完全没有兴趣的交易。我觉得非常无助。”

一次午餐，他和他的天使投资人发生争执，互相大喊大叫。他表示，“我告诉他我没法进行此交易。他反过来威胁我。我们双双都转身离开。”

Otero表示自己是在推出若干“垃圾”Facebook应用后得到这笔投资。

他表示，“我们失败了30次。”当KlickNation着手自己的第31款应用时，它开始将目光转移至倾向硬核玩家的游戏——这个理念鲜少有人认同，因为当时诸如Zynga之类的主流Facebook开发商都瞄准休闲玩家。

他表示，“有人觉得硬核游戏具有可行性。但我们自己也不清楚。我们只是决定试试看。我们于6月推出作品，没有进行宣传。但数据逐渐呈现积极态势。我们的总收益和净收入开始不相上下。这就是我们的制胜法宝。”

但即便如此，Otero也没有联系传统风投资本公司，因为他仍然不够自信。

他表示，“我们希望获得认同。我们深陷债务之中。这使我们失去基本常识。我们希望有人能够告诉我们，我们所选择的方向是正确的。然后他出现了，带着支票，笑脸盈盈地递上自己厚厚的简介。我们觉得这就是自己的绝佳机会。他的确向我们提供很好的建议，给予我们帮助，但这最终依然变成一个悲剧。”

Chang补充表示，“资本市场的现金很多。你需要认真思考自己的决策。利用风投资本总是会带来长期影响。”

他表示，EA曾有意收购这样一家公司：投资者占据70%的股权，而公司成员只有30%。公司首席执行官告诉Chang，他想要投靠EA，但董事会多半会选择出价更高的买主（虽然这可能让团队成员会心生不满，选择离开）。

Chang提醒投资者，这样的结果也会给收购者带来糟糕影响，致使他们放弃这笔交易。

Chang 表示，“虽然投资者享有董事会的实际控制权，但若管理团队不支持你，你也一无所有。若管理团队不包含在协议之中，或不满加入EA，那么我们多半也不会进行收购。”

4. 企业发展人员表示应该尽早和他们建立关系（虽然我对于这个策略持有不同看法）：鉴于行业山寨问题猖獗，向潜在竞争者透露过多业务信息风险很大，我个人不觉得这是明知举措。但Zynga Olsen建议和他们“尽早且频繁联系”。

他表示，“若你是手中握有一款杰出作品的小型团队，假设作品还没发行，这是可行策略。我们只是希望能够尽早展开对话。确保时常保持联系。”

EA Chang表示，公司企业发展部门经常向公司其他部门提供机会。他表示，“以小组形式加入我们非常有益。我们清楚公司内部各团队想要什么。”

通过达成KlickNation交易，EA去年开始着眼于Facebook硬核游戏，因为Bioware主管想要涉猎社交游戏。由于KlickNation标榜自己是“专攻社交游戏的Bioware”，且很有创收前景，二者似乎是个完美组合。

5. 不要毛遂自荐请求他人收购：这点也显而易见，但非常重要。Liew强调，“公司是被收购，而不是被出售。若你尝试自己找买家，那么就会陷入不利的境地。自己联系EA或Zynga，这通常不是我们所看到的交易模式。通常，这些公司会向你伸出橄榄枝。所以真的的问题是，你如何引起他们的注意？”

6. 寻找存在共同价值观的合拍收购者：Chang表示，只在EA呆两年就选择离开的创始人就没有什么价值，在他看来，“这完全是浪费资金”。

他表示，“我们是自愿联姻，而是被迫结合。我想告诉年轻公司，要有广泛的适应性。他们应该试着想想在EA或Zynga工作会是什么样子，这样他们就会明白什么是适合自己的长远选择。”他表示，EA有两位高级主管都是通过收购加入公司的，这就是他们所要寻找的人才。

7. 纯人才收购很难获得投资者的认可：Liew表示，“收购聘用”不是他的公司Lightspeed所追求的目标。“我们进行投资是想要获得价值上亿的公司。而不是训练出杰出团队，然后让他们帮其他人制作游戏。”

很多人才收购活动存在的问题是，条款令投资者处于不利地位。收购者多半会给所要收购的公司较低估值，但给予内部成员大量的保留股权。

Liew 表示，“若收购者给予投资者1%的股份，但给予雇员99%的股份会是什么情况？知道吗？我们有时甚至会签订股权50%的协议。我们会设定保护条款，要求不能损及原工作室的权益，要尊重我们制定的原始协议。”

也就是说，公司常常未能实现目标。在这种情况下，人才收购就是最佳选择。Liew举例Serious Business，该公司于2010年2月被Zynga收购。该工作室于2009年推出一款热门作品《Friends for Sale》，但据Liew表示，这款游戏并没有创收什么收益。

Liew表示，“我们发现游戏的设计存在根本缺陷，致使其无法创造收益。因此我们转而尝试第2款，第3款作品。此时，Zynga开始同我们联系，觉得团队人才济济。大家也纷纷表示愿意共同合作。”

Liew表示，他和公司团队探讨分成方式，希望大家都能满意最终结果。

他表示，“我们想要提前制作文件。我们没有和Serious Business发生任何争执，因为我们已合作很长时间。我们都很了解彼此。整个沟通非常愉快，最终所有人都选择加入Zynga。”

他补充表示，该工作室的联合创始人Alex Le最终还成为《Cityville》的执行制作人。Liew表示，“我们也感到非常愉快。这是个令人满意的结果。”

8. 好买主会提供较合理的额外追加款项。Chang表示，“若你设定不合理的预期，团队成员多半会选择离开。”就EA所收购的项目来看，这通常包括预先支付的现金+限制股+其他类型的奖励。

Chang还表示，奖励方式多种多样，这可视其达成的目标而定（游戏邦注：例如，发行特定游戏或获得收益）。但其中的风险是，行业变幻莫测，有些额外支付条款可能不再适用。

他表示，“1年前行业还不存在什么虚拟商品交易。近几年来，Facebook才逐步变成可行的游戏平台。我们很难预测行业未来会发生什么变化。”

在进行KlickNation交易时，Otero基于对公司营收的预测设定众多额外支付条款。

他表示，“他们允许我们创建自己的额外支付计划和时间表。在我看来，这是非常成功的交易。所以我非常开心。此外，额外支付条款是我非常看重的额外优惠条件。我希望EA和Bioware能够明白，这对他们来说是非常明智的投资举措。”

Zynga Olsen谈论的内容没有这么详细，但他表示，自己希望工作室的收益能够和Zynga提供的益处持平。他表示，“在Zynga，我们积极同创业人员建立关系网络，赋予他们自由，提高他们的积极性。”

基于风投资本的角度，Liew不赞同设定额外支付条款。

他表示，“我厌恶这些内容。之所以设定额外支付条款是因为大家的估值存在很大缺口。收购者希望支付X，而公司想要出售X+Y。所以你要如何填补其中缺口？通常，这是因为二者对于公司的未来预期存在不同看法。”

他表示，这通常还会出现若干开发工作室预料之外的元素，令开发者无法获得额外支付款项。Liew表示，有家公司就丧失1/4的额外支付款项，因为他们的买主在全公司范围内实行冻结招聘的策略。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Secrets of the acquisition process from EA and Zynga (straight from the horse’s mouth!)

By Kim-Mai Cutler

The corporate development folks over at Electronic Arts and Zynga shared some insider advice last night on how the acquisitions process works at both companies.

I’ve excerpted some advice from the panel, which was held last night at Pillsbury, a law firm in downtown San Francisco.

Michael Chang, a director of corporate development at Electronic Arts, Grant Olsen of Zynga’s corporate development team, Jeremy Liew, managing director at Lightspeed Venture Partners and Mark Otero, who was CEO of KlickNation, a core gamer-focused company that Electronic Arts bought for the Bioware label spoke about how these deals are done.

Some key takeaways:

1) Be extremely careful about your early agreements, especially with game publishers: Sometimes publishing arrangements that contain options on future games can kill deals because acquirers want teams to work on their games right away.

“With some companies, there have been publishing arrangements that made it unpalatable for us to go forward,” Chang said. He gave an example of an unnamed company that had signed a deal for three games. “We needed to use them immediately, but that deal locked them up on three more titles. That left them with very limited options.”

2) It’s worth it to spend the extra $1,000 on a competent lawyer who can get contracts done correctly: All of the panelists said poorly designed contracts can kill an acquisition if the entrepreneur isn’t careful about how they’re structured. ”Even some kind of invention agreement can seem really innocent, but come back to hurt the company later,” Zynga’s Olsen said.

3) Choose your investors wisely, because they can kill the outcome that you want: This is obvious, but there were some stories from the panel that were interesting.

Otero said KlickNation had raised about $100,000 after unsuccessfully making dozens of Facebook apps. In retrospect, the terms were bad because they gave Otero’s angel too much power over potential exits. It was a convertible debt investment with an interest rate and a minimum that ultimately gave KlickNation’s angel 10 percent of the company. (I reported that the company was sold for $35 million in December, including retention. Based on the structure of the deal, the angel likely had a 20X return. While Otero didn’t name names, the only angel in the company that was publicly known was Robert Simon at Ariva Partners.)

There were also veto rights associated with exits.

“Looking back, I kind of scratched my head. What the hell was I thinking?” Otero said. “I didn’t realize how powerful that veto right was when we were in the process of entertaining term sheets. It had tremendous power. It forced us to look at deals we didn’t want to do. I felt so powerless and helpless.”

At one lunch, he and his angel had such a contentious argument that they started yelling at each other. He said, “I told him I could not do this deal and he threatened me back. We both just walked away.”

Otero said he originally took the investment after several unsuccessful attempts at building basic, “spammy” Facebook apps that didn’t produce meaningful revenue.

“We had 30 failures,” he said. When KlickNation got to its 31st app, it started going into games that focused on more hardcore players — an idea that wasn’t proven at the time since the biggest developers on Facebook like Zynga were targeting casual gamers.

“There were whispers that core gaming would work. But we didn’t know. We just decided to give it shot. We launched in June and never advertised,” he said. “But the algebra began to work. Our topline revenue were was offsetting revenue. This was the Holy Grail.”

But even then, Otero didn’t approach traditional venture capital firms because he didn’t feel confident enough.

He said, “We wanted some validation. We were deeply in debt. It overcame basic common sense. We just wanted someone to let us know we were going down the right path. Here came this guy with a check, a smiley face and a long, impressive resume. We thought that this was our golden opportunity. He did provide good advice and he did help, but in the end, it was very painful.”

Chang added, “There’s plenty of cash out there. You need to be thoughtful about what you take. There are long-term implications of taking capital — sometimes smart, sometimes not.”

He said there was a company EA was interested in acquiring once, but the investors controlled 70 percent of the company while the team had 30 percent. The company’s chief executive told Chang that he wanted to go with EA, but that it was possible the board would go with another buyer that was offering a better price — even if it meant the team would be unhappy and leave.

Chang warned investors that such outcomes can end up being pretty bad for acquirers too and can scare them away from a deal.

“Even if investors have de facto control of the board, you have nothing if the management is not behind you,” Chang said. “If management isn’t coming with the transaction and isn’t going to be happy being part of EA, then we’re not buying the company.”

4) Corporate development folks say you should establish relationships with them early (though I have some mixed feelings about this strategy): Given rampant cloning issues in the industry and the risks associated with revealing too much about your business to a potential competitor, I’m not totally sure this is the best advice. But Zynga’s Olsen said to talk to them “early and often.”

“If you’re a small team with a great product, it’s OK if it’s not launched yet,” he said. “We just want to start a dialogue early. Make sure to keep in contact over time.”

EA’s Chang said his corporate development department often sources opportunities for other parts of the company. ”It’s helpful for groups to come to us. We know what different groups inside the company are looking for,” he said.

With the KlickNation deal, EA had started looking at core gaming on Facebook over the past year as the head of the Bioware unit was looking to expand on the social network. Because KlickNation billed itself as the “Bioware of social games” and was profitable, it seemed like a perfect fit.

5) Don’t go out trying to get bought: This is another obvious, but salient point. Liew emphasized, “Companies are bought, not sold. If you’re trying to find a buyer, that’s a difficult situation. If you’re calling EA or Zynga, that’s typically not how these transactions happen. Usually, these guys are reaching out to you. So the real question is how do you get noticed by them?”

6) Look for an acquirer with shared values that you’ll really be happy at: Chang says founders that go to Electronic Arts only to stay for two years and then leave aren’t really that valuable. “That’s a waste of money,” he said.

“We want marriage, not a shot gun marriage,” he said. “I like to tell younger companies that they should be promiscuous. They should find out what it’s like to work at EA or Zynga so they know which one would be the right place to join for a long-term home.” He said two of EA’s most senior executives came through acquisitions, and those are the kind of people he’s looking for.

7) It can be hard to make investors happy with pure talent acquisitions: Liew said “acq-hires” are definitely not what his firm, Lightspeed, is looking for. “We invest because we want to see companies that are worth hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars. We’re not looking to have a team get trained up, so it can build games for someone else.”

The issue with many talent acquisitions is that the terms can end up being stacked against investors. An acquirer might structure a deal in a way that gives a poor valuation for the company, but gives a huge chunk of retention to the employees.

“What if the buyer wants to give 1 percent to the investors and 99 percent to the employees?” Liew said. “Well, you know what? We may have negotiated a deal where we invested for 50 percent of the company. We have a protective provision not to hurt the entrepreneur but to honor the original deal we made.”

That said, it’s quite common for a company’s trajectory to just miss the mark. And in that case, a talent acquisition is often the best outcome. Liew gave the example of Serious Business, which was sold to Zynga in February of 2010. The company had a popular app back in 2009 called Friends for Sale, but Liew said the game couldn’t really monetize.

“We recognized there were fundamental flaws in the game’s design that wouldn’t help it monetize. So we tried a second game, then a third,” Liew said. “At the same time, Zynga came along and recognized that the team was incredibly talented. Everybody looked around the table and said, let’s do this.”

Liew says he talks with the company’s team about how the proceeds should be split, to make sure everyone is happy with the outcome.

“We try to document everything upfront,” he said. “We didn’t have any shouting matches with Serious Business because we had been working together for a long time. We understood each other. It was a civilized set of discussions that ended up with them being at Zynga.”

He added that one of the co-founders, Alex Le, ended up being the executive producer on Cityville, and the other, Siqi Chen, went to Zynga China. (Chen recently left Zynga after two years.) ”We ended up happy as well,” Liew said. “It was quite a reasonable outcome.”

8.A good acquirer will make a fair earnout, that isn’t impossible to reach: “If you set up unreasonable expectations, then folks will stream out,” Chang said. With EA deals, there is usually an upfront cash component, plus restricted stock units and other types of incentives.

Chang also said there are different ways to structure incentives. They can be tied to milestones, like the launch of certain games, or revenue. The risk though is that the industry is changing so fast, that it can make certain kinds of earnouts obsolete.

“In app purchases weren’t really around a year ago. Facebook wasn’t around as a viable gaming platform until the last few years,” he said. “It’s hard to predict changes in the market.”

In the KlickNation deal, Otero got to have a lot of input in designing his own earnout, based on forecasts for his company’s revenue.

“They allowed us to create our own earnout schedule and timeframe,” he said. “When the deal closed, it was very successful for me. So I was really happy there. Plus, the earnout was this additional piece of cake that I really wanted to earn. I wanted EA and Bioware to know that this was a great investment for them.”

Zynga’s Olsen was less specific but he also said that he tries to find ways to make the entrepreneur’s and Zynga’s interests align. ”At Zynga, we want to build a network of entrepreneurs and we give them the freedom and incentives to do this,” he said.

Giving the VC perspective, Liew was against earnouts.

“I hate them,” he said. “Earnouts are used because there is a gap in valuation. The acquirer wants to pay X, and the company wants to sell for X+Y. So how do you bridge the gap? Usually, it’s a difference in expectation about what the company is going to do.”

He said that there are often factors beyond the entrepreneur’s control that can destroy their ability to meet an earnout. Liew said there was a company he knew of that missed a quarter of their earnout because their acquirer had a companywide hiring freeze.（Source：insidemobileapps）