Sources: Microsoft And Activision Blizzard Still Committed to Complete Merger - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 18 July 2023 / 4,468 Views
Microsoft and Activision Blizzard are still committed to complete Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of the gaming publisher, according to people familiar with both companies plans speaking with The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
The acquisition has a deadline of 11:59 pm PT on Tuesday and Microsoft would now need to pay Activision Blizzard a breakup fee of $3 billion if either company terminates the deal. However, the people said neither company plans to end the deal.
The acquisition has been approved in Turkey, South Africa, South Korea, China, the European Union, Ukraine, Japan, Chile, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and Serbia. Microsoft also won its case against the FTC in the US, which was trying to block the deal.
The UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal has agreed to pause Microsoft's appeal of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) blocking the Activision Blizzard acquisition, with some requirements being needed to be satisfied by Thursday.
The UK regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and Microsoft both greed to pause litigation in order to work out a new agreement. The CMA also extended its deadline to make its final order on Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition from July 18 to August 29.
It was reported last week Microsoft and Activision Blizzard are considering giving up some control over cloud-gaming in the UK to appease the CMA. It is reported Microsoft might be willing to sell its cloud gaming rights in the UK to a telecommunications, gaming or internet-based computing company. One person said a private equity company might be interested.
Activision Blizzard stock has also been removed from the Nasdaq-100 Index in preparation for the merger to close.
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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Shareholders ultimately want this to happen so full steam ahead.
I wonder where the people saying Activision couldn't wait for the deal to fall through to get the $3 billion in free money are today? That argument never made any sense to me, as there are key decision-makers at ABK who are also shareholders and will get a big payday when this goes through.
Sources: Microsoft And Activision Blizzard Still Committed to Complete Merger
In other news, grass is green and water is wet.
Would be funny if Microsoft was just like "nah, fuck it. Here's your 3 billion dollars."
https://vxtwitter.com/lulumeservey/status/1681644640368304129?s=20
Deadline has been extended
People really misunderstood this July 18th deadline. The reason Microsoft was going to walk away from the deal if the PI was granted was that they would then be facing, at minimum, another 6 months of litigation, and more probably another year to 2 years, with 0 guarantee of a victory.
With the PI denied, now all they are looking at is at most 2 months of paperwork. ABK shareholders know this as well.
And ABK is not going to break this off and look for a different deal, as some have suggested. Their shareholders are not going to turn down $70 billion now to spend another 18 months in a regulatory quagmire
And many of their key executives are also shareholders, including Bobby Kotick. And they would rather a big payday as individuals than the company they manage getting extra working capital. I agree with you that that argument never made sense.
jumped through way to many hoops to back out now
Sounds like a bunch of forum warriors out there spreading doom and gloom news
I didn't see significant doom and gloom news. Where were you seeing this?
The traditional fanboys on social Media like Twitter etc
