PROFIT DECLINE HITS SHARES

SHARES of Rovio Entertainment, maker of the Angry Birds mobile games, fell after it reported declining profitability and warned investors of lower profits for the first half of the year. The company is prepared to cut its holding in subsidiary Hatch Entertainment, the cloud-based gaming service of which it currently owns 80 percent, to less than 50 percent. Without Hatch, the Finnish company’s profitability would improve by as much as 14 percent this year, it said yesterday. Rovio is now looking for outside backing to fund the growth of the unit, after taking an investment from Japan’s NTT Docomo earlier this month. Shares slid as much as 10.4 percent as the exchange opened in Helsinki. About an hour and a half into trading, the stock pared losses to 3.5 percent as investors digested its fourth-quarter report. Rovio said profitability was expected to decline this year to between 9 and 11 percent of sales, from 11.1 percent in 2018, and that most of the profit contribution would come in the second half of the year. The market remained highly competitive, the company said. The company’s pipeline includes 13 new games in development for 2019-2021.