Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 Billion on 2023-10-13

[Deleted member 11852]

Why on earth did it take Activision's board so long to to accept? Did they literally wait for the next scheduled routine board meeting?

How much of a difficult decision was that? Your company is a dumpster fire and Microsoft are giving a much better deal that you really worth. Oh.. you want another week to think it over whilst legal investigations continue to mount? Sure.. take your time.

 

[Jay]

Why on earth did it take Activision's board so long to to accept? Did they literally wait for the next scheduled routine board meeting?

How much of a difficult decision was that? Your company is a dumpster fire and Microsoft are giving a much better deal that you really worth. Oh.. you want another week to think it over whilst legal investigations continue to mount? Sure.. take your time.

I believe the board has already accepted it.
This is the shareholders.
Probably needed to give them time to look into it and come to a decision.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I believe the board has already accepted it.
This is the shareholders. Probably needed to give them time to look into it and come to a decision.

Well done for reading properly what I did not!

Yes.. polling all of the shareholders would have taken a while.

 

[eastmen]

Well done for reading properly what I did not!

Yes.. polling all of the shareholders would have taken a while.

It's really quickly , I actually think it comes down to this

https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?symb=ATVI&subView=institutional

If you look a large % of the company is institutional investors. The company itself is plagued with issues and the offer for the company was pretty high $95 a share and hte company is only selling at 76 right now. The institutional investors by themselves are enough for this to pass easily.

 

[eastmen]

https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...olders-Approve-Proposed-Microsoft-Transaction

SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI) announced that its stockholders approved Microsoft Corporation’s (Nasdaq: MSFT) proposal to acquire Activision Blizzard at the Activision Blizzard Special Meeting of Stockholders held earlier today. More than 98% of the shares voted at the Special Meeting were voted in favor of the proposed transaction with Microsoft.

It was approved by so many , I doubt this sees resistance going forward

 

[BRiT]

HoegLaw video/tweet about today's events...

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1519783539344035840

 

[zed]

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...akeholders-approve-microsoft-acquisition-deal
98% of shareholders agreed which is no surprise as MS paid about double what it was worth

The transaction is expected to close during Microsoft's fiscal year ending in June 30, 2023.

Is there time for MS to back out of the deal before then or is this it?

 

[PSman1700]

98% of shareholders agreed which is no surprise as MS paid about double what it was worth

Source that actvi wasnt worth what they gave for it? Seems to me it was well worth it for MS atleast, seeing the amount of studios that followed with.

Is there time for MS to back out of the deal before then or is this it?

Why would they? Its a blow to their competitors in the long run, the deal was probably worth more for MS than they gave for it.
The burning question is if sony can backout from the Bungie deal.

 

[eastmen]

Source that actvi wasnt worth what they gave for it? Seems to me it was well worth it for MS atleast, seeing the amount of studios that followed with.



Why would they? Its a blow to their competitors in the long run, the deal was probably worth more for MS than they gave for it.
The burning question is if sony can backout from the Bungie deal.

Activision as it was at the time of purchase was extremely toxic. On it's own it would most likely have withered and died. They were loosing subscribers on everything. The ip and dev teams are valuable but the troubles and executives were not.

Also yea MS wouldn't back out of this. It gives them some really strong ips to play with and what 10 more studios?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Is there time for MS to back out of the deal before then or is this it?

I honestly don't what the law says, but Microsoft filed their SEC papers a while back. Going through all of this only to back without a tremendously good reason could possible be construed by regulators as a hostile act against the market, or in some way trying to influence Microsoft and/or Activision-Blizzard share prices.

Given only 2% of shareholders voted against this, it seem absolutely clear that the majority of Activision-Blizzard shareholders would have accepted a much lower offer.

 

[BRiT]

98% of shareholders agreed

To be pedantic... You're rounding down. The exact sentence used is: "More than 98% of the shares voted at the Special Meeting were voted in favor of the proposed transaction with Microsoft."

 

[Jay]

Is there time for MS to back out of the deal before then or is this it?

If they wanted to they could, they would be liable for guess $5B, I can't remember the actual figures, but it's those sorts of amounts.

Eitherway your probably one of the very very few people that thinks it's bad, and the others who think it's bad usually think it's undervalued and that MS was pretty predatory.
Obviously most of the shareholders don't think that.

 

[PSman1700]

If they wanted to they could, they would be liable for guess $5B, I can't remember the actual figures, but it's those sorts of amounts.

Eitherway your probably one of the very very few people that thinks it's bad, and the others who think it's bad usually think it's undervalued and that MS was pretty predatory.
Obviously most of the shareholders don't think that.

You have to see it from another angle, for MS it was worth the price, its that what is important what it was worth to Microsoft. For MS its totally worth it, its the biggest studio they could go for regarding gaming. The CoD franchise alone is a huge one. Together with their previous aquirings MS holds the largest and most studios by now.
Now that the activision deal is kinda through, i wonder if they are looking for more to aquire.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...akeholders-approve-microsoft-acquisition-deal
98% of shareholders agreed which is no surprise as MS paid about double what it was worth

Is there time for MS to back out of the deal before then or is this it?

Funny how MS paying a 24% premium over Activision's current share price is somehow "about double what it was worth" (100% premium). Even at the time the offer was tendered by MS, Activision's share price was nowhere near 47.5 USD a share.

Sure, your opinion might be that Activision is worth less than that, but MS and Wallstreet don't really care about that.

Regards,
SB

 

[see colon]

The most exciting thing about the acquisition for me is the possibility of Microsoft bringing back some classic IPs that Activision owns. I think the Sierra franchises are still held by Activision, outside of the few they sold, for example.

 

[Jay]

You have to see it from another angle, for MS it was worth the price, its that what is important what it was worth to Microsoft. For MS its totally worth it, its the biggest studio they could go for regarding gaming. The CoD franchise alone is a huge one. Together with their previous aquirings MS holds the largest and most studios by now.
Now that the activision deal is kinda through, i wonder if they are looking for more to aquire.

It's far from through, its the regulators that are the hurdle.

It being a lot of money, doesn't meant its not actually got on the cheap though.

It's extremely beneficial for MS in nearly every possible way, apart from having to sort the 'working conditions' out.

 

[eastmen]

It's far from through, its the regulators that are the hurdle.

It being a lot of money, doesn't meant its not actually got on the cheap though.

It's extremely beneficial for MS in nearly every possible way, apart from having to sort the 'working conditions' out.

The working conditions are easy to sort out. You remove activision executives over time and replace them with microsoft and you replace activision policies with ms. Sure the transition will be 1-3 years on those roles but its a small amount of time vs owning those ips and teams forever

The regulators wont stop this. Even with this purchase Microsoft is a distant third and for the USA its the only USA company in the top 5. For everyone else its hard to stop this without looking like your protecting toxic work culture

 

[Jay]

The working conditions are easy to sort out. You remove activision executives over time and replace them with microsoft and you replace activision policies with ms. Sure the transition will be 1-3 years on those roles but its a small amount of time vs owning those ips and teams forever

The regulators wont stop this. Even with this purchase Microsoft is a distant third and for the USA its the only USA company in the top 5. For everyone else its hard to stop this without looking like your protecting toxic work culture

Never said it was hard, just that it's the only real thing that needs sorting out.
Although their current light touch ethos, hasn't worked well in every situation, and it's probably bit more work than you may think. But as I said considering everything, hardly an issue, but needs to be mentioned and not ignored.

Thinking that it's a done deal with regulators due to the single metric of their market share in gaming is wrong.

Example, MS themselves has made the metaverse a big deal. Where do they stand in that regards and how would this affect the competition.
Where are they in subscription services, what affect would this have on that.
Blah blah blah blah....

I'm still confident it will get through, but then I'm not heavily versed in all that.

 

[eastmen]

Never said it was hard, just that it's the only real thing that needs sorting out.
Although their current light touch ethos, hasn't worked well in every situation, and it's probably bit more work than you may think. But as I said considering everything, hardly an issue, but needs to be mentioned and not ignored.

Thinking that it's a done deal with regulators due to the single metric of their market share in gaming is wrong.

Example, MS themselves has made the metaverse a big deal. Where do they stand in that regards and how would this affect the competition.
Where are they in subscription services, what affect would this have on that.
Blah blah blah blah....

I'm still confident it will get through, but then I'm not heavily versed in all that.

Activision will be under xbox game studios which is under Phil. Sure they might put a main person in to over see activision under phil but like I said it wont be much of an issue. Anything that comes out from pre microsoft purchase will be dismissed in the court of public opinion since MS didn't own them at the time. Lawsuits can still work their way through but that is pennies on the dollar for microsoft at this point.

MS made the metaverse a big deal as did every other company. Who do you think is closest to the metaverse ? Meta has its own vr headsets and ecosystem with a baby metaverse in the making. Sony is working on the same deal with vr. Even with Hololens microsoft has some competition. Then you have large content platforms like Twitch which is backed up by amazon which has their own gaming streaming service . Then you have google with youtube and stadia. Even apple is making moves with their own music and tv content as well as owning one of the worlds largest platforms.

MS has competitive market share in some metrics against these companies and almost zero in other metrics. Heck even netflix with over 200m subs or something crazy like that is pushing for their own game content and metaverse.

I also don't really see anyone who has the power to block this to be like hey what about the metaverse ? You know that thing that really doesn't exist but is just a buzz word. Yea Just don't see it happening.

Honestly if any one tries to stop it , it will be the EU and they will only do that for money. Once ms pays the bribe amount it will be business as usual

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Funny how MS paying a 24% premium over Activision's current share price is somehow "about double what it was worth" (100% premium).

Maybe he meant what it was worth to him and what he would have paid!

Seriously though, value is subjective. Something worth X to one person is worth nothing to another. I think it's clear that Microsoft could have got it cheaper but I feel like they wanted a quick sale so made a good offer. The longer the fuckupery by Activision-Blizzard's existing management was allowed to continue, the greater the risk that company would be worth even less by the time the purchases completes.

Honestly if any one tries to stop it , it will be the EU and they will only do that for money. Once ms pays the bribe amount it will be business as usual

There is only one territory where corporate lobbying with money can influence regulator decisions and it isn't the EU.