Vivendi seeking a buyer for Activision Blizzard, wants $8.1 billion for the company

[garyopa]

The rumors were true after all...



Seems that, Vivendi is looking to unload Activision Blizzard. The company wants to sell its 61% stake in the publisher, valued at $8.1 billion.

Yes, it looks like the rumors were true.

According to Bloomberg, Vivendi decided to seek a buyer for its $8.1 billion stake in Activision Blizzard. If they can't find a single buyer, they will turn to the open market to unload those shares.

Vivendi Chairman Jean-Rene Fourtou is under pressure from investors to restructure his company and boost the stock price from a near nine-year low. The board had discussed a sale of part or all of its stake in publicly held Activision, maker of the “World of Warcraft” and “Call of Duty” titles, people with knowledge off the talks said earlier this month.

A Vivendi spokesman didn’t immediately respond to an e- mailed request for comment outside of business hours in France. Cassandra Bujarski, an outside spokeswoman for Activision, had no immediate comment.

Activision, the largest U.S. video-game publisher, rose 4.4 percent to $11.99 at the close in New York. The shares have declined 2.7 percent this year. Vivendi gained 3.1 percent to 14.63 euros in Paris, and is down 11 percent this year. The stock hit a nine-year low of 12.01 euros on April 19.

According to analyst Michael Pachter, Vivendi might not have many suitors for the game maker:

"The problem is there are no readily apparent buyers for Activision," Pachter told Bloomberg. "The only option left to Vivendi is to lever up Activision's balance sheet and pay out all of its cash as a dividend, then spin the company off."

So, what do you think? EA, Google, Apple, Microsoft and even Nintendo could afford to buy them...

NEWS SOURCE #1: Vivendi said to plansale of stake in Activision-Blizzard (via) BloomBerg
NEWS SOURCE #2: Vivendi looking to unload Activision-Blizzard report (via) GameSpot

Our thanks to 'Gauss' for this news item!

[JonathanD]

8.1 Billion thats a lot of WoW and Diablo III lol

[DEDDOA]

Come on now, you forgot Starcraft, them Koreans go mental for Starcraft

God help us if EA buy them, tho I am suprised Blizzard don't strike out on their own, as it currently stands they could completely run themselves, they are a seperate entity in the Company anyway and I am hard pressed to find Activision mentioned in any of their products.

[MadonnaProject]

woah thats a lot of delicious money.

[Signa]

The writing must be on the wall then. People are saying that COD is getting stale, and there is a lot of Blizzard hate going around right now. They may not be the cashcow that they have been. It makes sense to unload them while their value is still high.

[billysastard]

The writing must be on the wall then. People are saying that COD is getting stale, and there is a lot of Blizzard hate going around right now. They may not be the cashcow that they have been. It makes sense to unload them while their value is still high.

tbh i'm more excited about bo2 than several recent cod games as this one seems to have a single player game that wont be complete by the time i take a breath, it'll be a day 1 purchase if, and only if, there is a worthwhile prestige or hardened edition, of course if its just another dlc crapfest like that pos last year then i'll wait and pick it up cheap or preowned once the price falls to what its worth without all the download crap.

[JonathanD]

The writing must be on the wall then. People are saying that COD is getting stale, and there is a lot of Blizzard hate going around right now. They may not be the cashcow that they have been. It makes sense to unload them while their value is still high.

On the note of Blizzard hate, just sit and read the Diablo III forums... The amount of posts that have been deleted by mods is amazing. Don't let the "Post deleted by user" fool you... They are banning people for calling them names and complaining about pretty much everything.

I am about to finish off the game in Inferno mode and it seems pretty good. Not nearly as good as Diablo 2 LOD though, and thats a shame.

My hope is that they patch stuff back into the game and maybe after an expansion things will get back into the greatness that was LOD.... Failing that then Blizzard deserves all the negative posts they are getting right now. Should they fail they will have succeeded in trashing a fantastic franchise.

After all D2 classic was great but compared to LOD it too was pretty weak, so cross thy fingers true believers!

I have too many complaints about Diablo III to list in a post here, but I have been mulling over doing a full review for the review section here, where I will attempt to make sense of what my true feelings are for the game.

Don't get me wrong I do enjoy the game, in spite of its failings even with it being as bad as it is, its still better then most other games of its type.

[Signa]

Don't get me wrong I do enjoy the game, in spite of its failings even with it being as bad as it is, its still better then most other games of its type.

Wow, I'm going through my older posts and I doubt you'll see this, but I have to ask, what other games in the genre are you comparing it to? I really enjoy Sacred 2 and Titan Quest: Immortal Throne as the pinnacle of loot-based ARPG gaming. D3 looks like a watered down version of the entire genre. The only thing I really liked was the animations, because it make combat seem so much more visceral. I felt like watching the barbarian fight actually meant seeing him destroy things, Kratos style. In D2, he was a boring click-fest, because he didn't do much other than attack.

[JonathanD]

Wow, I'm going through my older posts and I doubt you'll see this, but I have to ask, what other games in the genre are you comparing it to? I really enjoy Sacred 2 and Titan Quest: Immortal Throne as the pinnacle of loot-based ARPG gaming. D3 looks like a watered down version of the entire genre. The only thing I really liked was the animations, because it make combat seem so much more visceral. I felt like watching the barbarian fight actually meant seeing him destroy things, Kratos style. In D2, he was a boring click-fest, because he didn't do much other than attack.

The barbarian in D2 was ok but I mostly used mine as a shouter when I was multi boxing. That being said the Barbarian in D3 is actually really good, if you decide to try out D3 avoid the Witch Doctor like the plague.... so weak, I got mine up to level 50 before deciding to try out some of the other classes. Got my barb to 60 in less then a third of the time I played to get my WD to 50.

D3 really is good in a lot of ways, I would say skip it until they fix it and go back to play D2 with its awesome gameplay and crafting and rune system, but D2 looks like ass on a wide screen monitor There is a patch for it that makes it look a tiny bit better but it still does not look right.

I really do enjoy the animation quality in D3, use the barbarian with cleave and there is a rune that makes enemies explode when they die, the bodies go flying in parts and different directions, cleave a bunch of skeletons and the bones will bounce off of stuff and fall into the open graves or off cliffs. Playing D3 is almost like playing a high definition computer animated cartoon in how slick it is.