Finesse Publishing Group acquires Kuju Wireless Publishing

The Finesse Publishing Group has announced its acquisition of Kuju Wireless Publishing, the mobile game publishing arm of Kuju Entertainment.

Established in 2004 to clearly distinguish between Kuju's mobile game publishing activities and its PC/console development group, the wireless publishing group has worked with some of the industry's key partners to bring a number of high profile titles to market.

Under the terms of the agreement, former managing director of KWP, Kevin Holloway, will join Finesse as its new CEO. Kuju Wireless will be re-branded as Finesse Mobile as part of its integration into the new group.

"Finesse is delighted to build upon the strong foundations laid by Kuju Wireless Publishing and looks forward to growing the company in the rapidly evolving mobile content industry," Holloway commented.

Significantly, Kuju will continue to develop mobile games, wholly retaining its mobile phone game development group, which operates as one of Kuju Entertainment's autonomous studios.

Jonathan Newth, Kuju's managing director, added: "Kuju Entertainment remains committed to mobile phone game development through the retention of our mobile development studio. With over 60 games developed on a range of technologies (including 2D & 3D J2ME, Symbian, SMS and Interactive TV) we have one of the strongest independent mobile development studios in the UK. As mobile platforms continue to grow in complexity and capability, our ability to leverage the technical knowledge of our sister PC and console divisions will be a key competitive advantage."

"Kuju intends to focus on its core skills in development, particularly as we enter the era of the next generation of consoles. We believe that the agreement with Finesse provides the clear focus and optimum return to Kuju for the IP and business that has been created so far," Newth concluded.