TruFin, the British company that owns most of Balatro publisher Playstack, has agreed to sell its 84.5% stake to Integrated Media Company (IMC) for about £112.4 million ($151 million). Announced on 21 May 2026, the deal values Playstack at roughly £125 million ($169 million) and is set to close around 10 June 2026, once TruFin shareholders vote it through.
Is Balatro itself being sold? No.
The short answer for players: nothing about Balatro changes hands here.
Balatro is made by solo developer LocalThunk, who owns the game and its intellectual property. Playstack is the publisher — it handles release, marketing and platform deals, not ownership of the game. This sale is about who owns Playstack, not who owns Balatro. LocalThunk keeps the game, and there is no announced change to updates, ports or the modding scene.
So when headlines say "Balatro publisher sold," read publisher. The card game in your library is unaffected.
The deal at a glance
| Seller | TruFin (British holding company) |
| Stake sold | 84.5% of Playstack |
| Buyer | VantageCo Limited, a new subsidiary of Integrated Media Company (IMC) |
| Stake price | |
| Implied valuation | |
| Announced | 21 May 2026 |
| Expected close | ~10 June 2026, pending TruFin shareholder vote |
| Break fee | £5.2 million (~$6.98 million) if the deal collapses |
Two investors who together hold 44.29% of TruFin's shares have already backed the sale, so shareholder approval is widely expected.
Who is IMC?
Integrated Media Company is a New York based investment group, wholly owned by the private equity firm TPG. Through Fandom, IMC already owns a large slice of games media: GameSpot, Fandom, Fanatical and Screen Junkies.
That ownership is also where the caution comes from. After Fandom bought GameSpot, Giant Bomb and Metacritic from Red Ventures in late 2022, roughly 40 to 50 staff across those outlets were laid off. Coverage of the Playstack deal has flagged that history as the obvious question mark over a private-equity owner. For now it is precedent, not a prediction — no Playstack job changes have been announced.
Why sell a studio that is winning?
The sale is not a distress sale. By Playstack's own numbers it is one of the most efficient publishers in indie games:
- Hit ratio above 85% — more than eight in ten of its published titles return a profit on development spend.
- £55.3 million gross revenue in 2025, up 24% year over year.
- £12.2 million profit before tax, up 59%.
- The catalog has grossed over $100 million on Steam and passed 20 million downloads in its last fiscal year.
For TruFin, a fintech holding company, selling its best-performing asset near the top is the "disciplined approach to capital allocation" its CEO James van den Bergh pointed to. For IMC, Playstack is a proven hit-maker with a deep slate.
Playstack was founded in 2016 by former Electronic Arts executive Harvey Elliott and entrepreneur Jasper Smith, and just passed its tenth year. Beyond Balatro, its catalog of 20-plus games includes Abiotic Factor, The Case of the Golden Idol, Mortal Shell, Unbeatable and VOID/BREAKER.
What Playstack says
CEO Harvey Elliott moved quickly to reassure developers and players:
In practical terms, this is a change in ownership rather than a change in who we are. Our team, our strategy, and our commitment to publishing premium indie games remain exactly the same. For now, it's business as usual.
Playstack has eight titles lined up for 2026, including Mortal Shell 2 and Lorn Vale.
What to watch next
The vote is the gate. If TruFin shareholders approve, the deal closes around 10 June 2026 and Playstack becomes an IMC company. The signals worth tracking afterward are the boring but telling ones: staffing, the 2026 release slate holding its dates, and whether Playstack keeps publishing the kind of small, weird, high-upside games that produced Balatro in the first place.
For Balatro players specifically, the thing to remember is the one that matters: the game is LocalThunk's, and it stays that way.
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