Takeover Rumors Raise Take-Two Stock

[Logan Frederick]

Takeover Rumors Raise Take-Two Stock

Wall Street reports suggest Take-Two Interactive is back on the buyout block.

Rumors circulated from unknown sources this morning suggested that buyout talks for Take-Two Interactive, potentially by Electronic Arts, have been renewed as institutional investors increased their trading activity by an additional half million shares today. A post on America Online's BloggingStocks [http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2007/09/26/option-update-sherwin-williams-up-on-buyout-chatter/] blog by TheFlyOnTheWall [http://www.theflyonthewall.com], a stock news and rumor paid subscription service, says, "Unconfirmed and renewed buyout chatter is circulating about [Take Two] this morning."

A financial meeting to be hosted by Lainie Goldstein, Take-Two's Chief Financial Officer, and Cindi Buckwalter, the company's Executive Vice President, in London at 6:00 a.m. EDT was unexpectedly delayed [http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/643933/].

Shares of Take-Two skyrocketed approximately 6 percent by 11:00 a.m. when the price reached its intra-day peak of $17.93. The stock closed at $17.43, up 2.53 percent from its opening price of $17.14.

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[krysalist]

Please no. Please no.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.

My unbiased opinion.

 

[werepossum]

Skyrocketed approximately 6 percent? Isn't that a bit strong? 6 percent is no skyrocket - it's a whistling chaser.

And EA couldn't be any more tone deaf or customer-hostile than Take-Two's copy protection on the PC version.

 

[Logan Frederick]

Six percent in two hours is worthy of skyrocket IMO. Had it been gradual over the day, maybe not. Had it been discontinuous and jumped from 17.14 to 17.93 without any trades in-between, then it would've been labeled "jumped" or "leaped".

But the image of today's Take-Two graph shows a nice skyrocketing line as the stock has a short beginning followed by a steep vertical rise similar to the one a rocket takes as it heads toward the sky. In the future, I'll be more careful to balance my rocketing with verbs like "climb".

As for the news itself, EA certainly won't purchase Take-Two. It's just too expensive a company for EA to swallow, especially if they're in this whole Ubisoft takeover or perhaps teh SCi Entertainment one. Heck, EA could be buying Microsoft for all we know.

Much more likely is a private equity group buying Take-Two for approximately $2 billion. That is, if any deal is going to occur. I'd be surprised if it happened though. Take-Two will be bouncing back soon as Bioshock momentum carries them to GTA IV. They just recently reached their old heights after the GTA IV delay plummeted the stock.

It could happen if Strauss Zelnick has some really good buyout compensation plan though. Shareholders would probably be happy with a takeover too.