Activision Blizzard Files Emergency Appeal Against Buyback Ruling

[Michael Epstein]

Activision Blizzard Files Emergency Appeal Against Buyback Ruling

Activision Blizzard says their spinoff plan will fail if judge doesn't reverse his decision.

Activision Blizzard and parent company Vivendi have filed an emergency appeal to cancel an injunction barring the planned stock buyback that would make the publisher an independent company. The deal, which would allow Activision Blizzard and members of its executive board to purchase a large portion of Vivdendi's stock in the company, was pair of lawsuits [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/127975-Activision-Blizzard-Buyback-Halted-by-Court] asserted the deal was not necessarily in shareholders' interests and should be subject to shareholder approval.

According to The Wall Street Journal [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304713704579093602453209292.html], Activision Blizzard claims the injunction will kill the deal before the shareholders will be able to vote on the matter. The publisher will not be able to schedule a shareholders' meeting to vote on the matter before the transaction automatically terminates October 15.

Activision Blizzard announced its plan to spinoff from Vivendi in July. If the deal goes through, Vivendi will sell $8.2 billion worth of Activision Blizzard stock in a pair of transactions: The company would purchase the bulk of the stock - 429 million shares - for $5.83 billion, while a private investor group led by CEO Bobby Kotick and co-chairman Brian Kelly would pay $2.34 billion for an additional 172 million shares.

Activision Blizzard released a statement last week saying that, despite the injunction, the spinoff plan was still in place, and the company "is exploring the steps it will take to complete the transaction as expeditiously as possible." The publisher's lawyers added that "the injunction leaves Activision and its stockholders in limbo and at risk of losing an $8 billion deal that will return the company to public control."

The Delaware Supreme Court will rule on Activision Blizzard's appeal at a hearing October 10.

Source: Polygon [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304713704579093602453209292.html]

Permalink

 

[Agayek]

That smells more than a little fishy. I'm kinda half hoping the deal does fall through now.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

ActiBliz CEO attempts insider trading with himself after Vivendi tried to bleed out its only real asset to save itself

I hope they keep cannibalizing each other for a long time

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

If Actiblizz dies, all the development guys will still stay in making games and move on to other projects without Mr. Kotick, Shapeshifting Master of Darkness to rule them with his risk-adverse fist.

It's might be good thing if Blizzivision bleeds out.

238U[footnote]As of this posting I have not received a US National Security Letter or any classified gag order from an agent of the United States.
Encrypted with Morbius-Cochrane Perfect Steganographic Codec 1.2.001
Tuesday, September 24, 2013 11:10:24 AM
formula ring butter war mint bead fireman schedule[/footnote]

 

[Tony2077]

the only stuff i'm hoping for is
1 the judge isn't an idiot and makes the right call
2 sc2 the final part comes out before anything bad happens

 

[RJ 17]

In other news, Bobby Kotick was seen weeping after the injunction was ordered, sobbing "But...but...but...my money!!!" Who would have thought that the shareholders would want to buy some of that stock at the special discounted prices that Kotick and Kelly were going to be getting? Don't people LIKE being ripped off?

 

[Sean951]

So... we would rather see Activision hemorrhage to death through no fault of their own, conceivably taking developers down with them, than allow this deal to go through?

 

[Little Gray]

In other news, Bobby Kotick was seen weeping after the injunction was ordered, sobbing "But...but...but...my money!!!" Who would have thought that the shareholders would want to buy some of that stock at the special discounted prices that Kotick and Kelly were going to be getting? Don't people LIKE being ripped off?

Actually it would appear that they have some aversion to making money. Activision stock hit it highest point in over five years shortly after the deal was announced. Now however its starting to drop again and will go below what it was before the deal if it doesn't go through.

If Actiblizz dies, all the development guys will still stay in making games and move on to other projects without Mr. Kotick, Shapeshifting Master of Darkness to rule them with his risk-adverse fist.

It's might be good thing if Blizzivision bleeds out.

Except that they wont. Activision dying (which it wont regardless of this deal) will remove billions of dollars in game funding from the industry. That is a massive hole that nobody out there can really fill.

 

[RJ 17]

In other news, Bobby Kotick was seen weeping after the injunction was ordered, sobbing "But...but...but...my money!!!" Who would have thought that the shareholders would want to buy some of that stock at the special discounted prices that Kotick and Kelly were going to be getting? Don't people LIKE being ripped off?

Actually it would appear that they have some aversion to making money. Activision stock hit it highest point in over five years shortly after the deal was announced. Now however its starting to drop again and will go below what it was before the deal if it doesn't go through.

That's...actually my point exactly: Kotick stood to make a LOT of money had this deal gone through...but due to the injunction the deal hasn't gone through and as such the stock is dropping.

Hence Bob Kotick saying "But...but...but....my money!!!"

 

[Nilanius]

I honestly hope the court upholds the ruling. What Kotick was doing was most definitely insider trading. And since buying and merging Blizzard to Activision, Blizzard's quality for games has plummeted, and no longer feels "By gamers for gamers" on any of their titles. Starcraft 2 started out good, but the DRM really wasn't needed for single player mode. And then the first expansion throwing away all the work just to make Kerrigan a zerg again and the story really devolving in quality to me, didn't do that genre any service.

Diablo 3, huge huge plop. Yeah it "sold" millions of copies, but what good is selling copies if the majority of the customers have now declared they hate it?

World of Warcraft? It had good going for it till the end of wrath of the lich king, when Activision came in and in came their puppet Ghostcrawler who became lead developer for cataclysm and beyond. The game has lost more customers in 3 years, than it took for it to get 12 million during wrath of the lich king's days. Their latest expansion lost more subscriptions than cataclysm did.

Then you got Kotick trying to do some shady deal to line his own wallet, and got caught. So yeah, I really hold no sympathy for Activision Blizzard. By now, all the good developers have already moved on. And many people were justified when they said that Activision taking over Blizzard was a bad idea. That prediction is now a reality. Sad, but that's just the state any company Kotick gets hold of, ends up in.

 

[Lunar Templar]

Part of me wants ActiBlizz to get away from Vivindi, and I don't know why .... I've really got no love at all for Blizzard or Activision and them getting bleed out by Vivindi really doesn't mean much to me at the end of the day as a result, yet, I still kinda want them to break away.

The other part of me wants them to see Blizzard get sucked dry for all the over rated crap they make.

 

[Abomination]

Part of me doesn't like the insider trading part... but another part of me doesn't want to see ActiBlizzard get fucked because of one dickhead's insider trading.

Rock and a hard place.

 

[Signa]

I'm actually hoping this goes through still. I hate Blizz-Acti with a passion, but I'd at least like to see what they are without a mega conglomerate holding their leash. Seriously, once I found out that Vivendi is involved in just about anything that's "big money," including oil, I started to doubt everything I knew about Kotick as a head of a gaming company. I consider it entirely possible for him to be more of a figurehead than an actual villain up to this point. The only way to know for sure now is for this deal to go through.

 

[Little Gray]

In other news, Bobby Kotick was seen weeping after the injunction was ordered, sobbing "But...but...but...my money!!!" Who would have thought that the shareholders would want to buy some of that stock at the special discounted prices that Kotick and Kelly were going to be getting? Don't people LIKE being ripped off?

Actually it would appear that they have some aversion to making money. Activision stock hit it highest point in over five years shortly after the deal was announced. Now however its starting to drop again and will go below what it was before the deal if it doesn't go through.

That's...actually my point exactly: Kotick stood to make a LOT of money had this deal gone through...but due to the injunction the deal hasn't gone through and as such the stock is dropping.

Hence Bob Kotick saying "But...but...but....my money!!!"

Except that the people causing the injunction are screwing themselves and all the other shareholders over.

 

[RJ 17]

In other news, Bobby Kotick was seen weeping after the injunction was ordered, sobbing "But...but...but...my money!!!" Who would have thought that the shareholders would want to buy some of that stock at the special discounted prices that Kotick and Kelly were going to be getting? Don't people LIKE being ripped off?

Actually it would appear that they have some aversion to making money. Activision stock hit it highest point in over five years shortly after the deal was announced. Now however its starting to drop again and will go below what it was before the deal if it doesn't go through.

That's...actually my point exactly: Kotick stood to make a LOT of money had this deal gone through...but due to the injunction the deal hasn't gone through and as such the stock is dropping.

Hence Bob Kotick saying "But...but...but....my money!!!"

Except that the people causing the injunction are screwing themselves and all the other shareholders over.

Evidently they feel that's worth doing in order to prevent Kotick from doing what he's doing.