Saudi Arabia is the First Place to Approve Microsoft's Acquisition of Activision Blizzard - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 21 August 2022 / 4,317 Views
Microsoft in January of this year announced its plans to acquire Activision Blizzard in a deal worth $68.7 billion.
Seven months after the announcement of the acquisition, Saudi Arabia's competition authority has become the first place to approve the acquisition.
The deal could also possibly be approved by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the US by the end of this month. Brad Smith, the Microsoft President and Vice Chair, in May said the Activision Blizzard acquisition is "moving fast" for how big the deal is.
Saudi Arabia’s competition authority has approved Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. It’s the first of many to come that will be needed for the $68.7 billion deal to close https://t.co/mVMJqPi2GE
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) August 21, 2022
The Communications Workers of America, the largest communications and media labor union in the United States, sent a letter to the FTC in support of the proposed acquisition.
Activision Blizzard shareholders in April voted to approve Microsoft's acquisition of the gaming giant. More than 98 percent of the shares voted in favor of the acquisition at $95.00 per share.
If the deal is approved by all regulatory bodies the video game IPs that will be owned by Microsoft include Call of Duty, Warcraft, Candy Crush, Tony Hawk, Diablo, Overwatch, Spyro, Hearthstone, Guitar Hero, Crash Bandicoot, StarCraft, and more.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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I’m surprised this is such a problem considering all the other monster acquisitions that have happened in other entertainment industries.
“This video game Empire of Microsoft must be stopped! …. What about Disney? What do you mean ‘what do ABC, Pixar, 20th Century Fox (or is it 21st century?), Marvel, and LucasFilm have in common?’ I don’t see any issue!”
Not to mention The Jim Henson Company, the Indiana Jones licence, etc. ;) The only major part of my childhood media consumption that Disney doesn't own now is Hasbro/Sunbow Productions.
And it's apparently now neither 20th Century Fox nor 21st Century anything.. it's apparently now 20th Century Studios. shrug
Well, as the Arabs say, yalla!
What happens if just one country says no?
Yup, only major regulatory matters to Microsoft, they can easily pull out of smaller markets. US, EU, UK, Brazil, and Japan are the only major countries that holds weight and even between them, Japan and Brazil are still smaller for Xbox. So its US, EU and UK.
CAPTAIN?
Please don't start him :) I thought of him too when I saw the country name lol
He is probably still sleeping or something!
to funny
Not sleeping he's busy trying to find those now very old people that burned Beatles records in the sixties to help him organise a bonfire to burn Xbox games while also helping steal the golf clubs belonging to those Saudi led golf traitors.
The second action is especially important since it accomplishes two things with the one action, firstly it deprives the golfers of the implements needed for their livelihood and secondly it gives the Captain the tools to smash those Xbox consoles.
I think he's banned.
Had no idea my country was included in the approval process!
I’m learning valid info from these acquisitions.
If both companies had good business and a number of employees in a said country, their business could be negatively affected by going against the will of that country.
