You’d be excused for not knowing who Leyou Holdings are. Until recently, we’d not really heard the name either. However you might have heard of some of their subsidiaries, like Digital Extremes (developers of Warframe), Splash Damage (co-developers on many Gears of War games). They also own a minority stake in Certain Affinity (developers of Halo: Annoversary) that can be converted into full ownership as of next year. Needless to say, they have a decent numbers of studios under their belt.

Reports started appearing a few days ago that they were potentially in the process of a bidding war for their sale. Now, with a trading halt placed on their stock, it seems almost guaranteed that they’re soon going to be announcing their acquisition by another company. Previous rumours pointed to two major players: Tencent and Sony. Both companies are already big players in the gaming world obviously, and both have shown recently that they’re more than happy to splash some cash and get some more developers on their side. The winning bidder also looks to get the rights to the new Lord of the Rings MMO that’s in development.

Trading halts normally don’t last too long, so we expect to hear in the relatively near future who the winner bidder for Leyou Holdings is, so stay tuned to Rocket Chainsaw for more information.