Guangdong Alpha Animation and Culture Co Ltd signed an investment cooperation agreement with United States entertainment company Hasbro Inc on Thursday in Shanghai, in a bid to co-establish a joint venture for the development and design of animation toys.

The JV will attract a total of $15 million from both sides. It will distribute products and manage the use of brands globally.

The two companies will each hold half of the JV. The board of directors will comprise four people, two from each company.

The first listed animation company in China, Alpha went public on the Shenzhen Component Index in 2009 and has a market value of 7.6 billion yuan ($1.2 billion).

Its yo-yo toy under the brand Blazing Teens, has reached aggregated sales of 3 billion yuan after it was launched in 2005.

After successfully acquiring the JiaJia cartoon channel in 2010, Alpha became the country’s only private company with ownership of a cartoon channel.

The NASDAQ-listed Hasbro is a branded play company providing a wide-range of entertainment offerings based on the company’s brands such as Transformers, My Little Pony, and Monopoly, among others.

David Hargreaves, chief operating officer of Hasbro, said that China will become the largest consumer market in the world and that Alpha's leading position and similarities with Hasbro helped with the establishment of the JV.

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