Activision-Blizzard Completes Purchase from Vivendi
Activision-Blizzard now owns itself.
Over the weekend, Activision-Blizzard announced that it had completed its shares buyout deal with Vivendi. The company itself bought up 429 million shares from Vivendi for $5.83 billion. A separate investment group, led by CEO Bobby Kotick, bought up another 172 million shares for $2.34 billion, giving Activision-Blizzard a 61% majority sharehold in itself.
“With the completion of this transaction we open a new chapter in the history of Activision Blizzard,” stated Kotick in regards to the deal. “We expect immediate shareholder benefits in the form of earnings-per-share accretion and strategic and operational independence.
“Our audiences and our incredibly talented employees around the world will benefit from a focused commitment to the creation of great games. Our shareholders and debt holders will have the benefit of an energized, invested, deeply committed management team focused on generating long-term, superior returns and effectively managing our capital structure.”
This buyout scheme had been formulated back in late July this year, but a minority shareholder filed a lawsuit in hopes of blocking the buyout. Douglas Hayes, the angry shareholder in question, had slapped down the lawsuit on the grounds that the Activision-Blizzard buyout couldn't go down without a minority stakeholder vote. A few days ago, the Delaware Supreme Court gave Vivendi and Activision-Blizzard the green light, declaring that no vote was necessary since it was a share re-purchase.
In any case, Activision-Blizzard now owns itself. Whether or not this means the company will change up the way it deals with its portfolio of IPs remains to be seen.
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Catherine Cai was a freelance news writer for Tom's Hardware. She covered a variety of tech industry news, ranging from PC components to PC and console gaming.
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MANOFKRYPTONAK I like this The more freedom Blizzard has to govern itself the better the video games :)Reply -
MANOFKRYPTONAK I like this The more freedom Blizzard has to govern itself the better the video games :)Reply -
MANOFKRYPTONAK I like this The more freedom Blizzard has to govern itself the better the video games :)Reply -
gibbousmoon100 With Kotick in the captain's chair, you can expect very little change. His priorities are and always will be his shareholders, not product quality.Reply
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raptorkill And I was thinking of going Back to WoW, but if Kotick is all about profit and not consumer satisfaction then I will refrain.Reply -
rantoc Dunno if this is good for the consumers, risk is that it will benefit the shareholders at the expense of the customers.... I dont doubt for a second that we will see more things like Diablo 4 even worse that Diablo 3 in the future along with CoD 99 with the regular 3-4 map pack upgrades for insane prices.. Milk Milk Milk - That's the current ceo's only motto!Reply