FaZe acquired by Complexity ownership

FaZe Clan will officially be under new ownership by the end of the year as GameSquare is finalizing its acquisition of the beleaguered organization, according to Digiday. In the early morning hours, the company board groups for FaZe and Complexity agreed to an all-stock transaction deal that merges FaZe and GameSquare into one company that needs shareholder approval. According to Digiday, FaZe stock will account for approximately 45% of the firm's ownership, valuing FaZe at roughly $16.0M.

As part of the deal, some original FaZe members are now taking on executive roles within the FaZe brand. Founder Richard “FaZe Banks” Bengston will assume the role of CEO, Thomas “Temperrr” Oliveira will become a president, and Yousef “Apex” Abdelfattah will become FaZe COO.

In a comment to Digiday, GameSquare CEO Justin Kenna believes that these original members are the right ones to lead the FaZe brand forward in the next stage of the brand's lifecycle. Kenna previously served as CFO of FaZe from 2018 through 2020.

For Counter-Strike fans, the merger presents a different issue: what happens to the FaZe and Complexity teams? At the moment, it is unknown how tournament organizers will handle the impending unification and have until the end of the year until it becomes official.

With the merger, however, the current iterations of the FaZe and Complexity Counter-Strike teams should not be able to compete against one another in any competitions, considering they will have the same ownership. This will be similar to how Evil Geniuses could not send both EG Black and EG White to similar competitions within the BLAST and ESL circuits and why both squads could not enter the Counter-Strike Major cycle while EG Main did.

Dust2.us has contacted BLAST and ESL for comment on the situation but has not heard back by publication.