How Activision Blizzard almost didn't happen
A proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission tells the tale of how the Activision Blizzard merger almost didn't happen. GameDaily sifted through the massive document to discover that discussions about the possible merger go back to November of 2006, with things really heating up going into last summer. After little progress on transaction terms, Jean-Bernard Lévy, CEO of Vivendi, called up Activision head Bobby Kotick in June to say that he "did not think it made sense to continue discussions concerning a possible transaction at that time."
Around July, Kotick contacted Lévy with Activision's new proposal. The lawyers went to work and sometime around September, with "little progress on open issues," Kotick called the deal off. Strangely, Blizzard's Mike Morhaime and other Blizzard managers (who were under the Vivendi umbrella at the time) stepped up and got things back on track with a management structure proposal. By November the Activision Blizzard deal was final and the industry got another 800 lb. gorilla to keep EA company.
Around July, Kotick contacted Lévy with Activision's new proposal. The lawyers went to work and sometime around September, with "little progress on open issues," Kotick called the deal off. Strangely, Blizzard's Mike Morhaime and other Blizzard managers (who were under the Vivendi umbrella at the time) stepped up and got things back on track with a management structure proposal. By November the Activision Blizzard deal was final and the industry got another 800 lb. gorilla to keep EA company.












Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Vegnagun bwf @ Feb 1st 2008 5:33PM
It feels like this post should be assaulted on all sides by Back to the Future quotes. Have at it.
Alex M @ Feb 1st 2008 6:35PM
If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious shit.
Purple Haze @ Feb 1st 2008 6:51PM
Dammit, they already took the good ones!
LaughingTarget @ Feb 1st 2008 7:30PM
Does this mean Lybians are going to go after ActiBlizzard because they used their plutonium to get this deal through?
Anam @ Feb 1st 2008 5:38PM
Great Scott!
copa @ Feb 1st 2008 6:24PM
I can't believe Blizzard was supportive of this mess. Why would a top-tier developer raking in over $1B a year on a single game want to become part of the bloated mess of uneven quality that is Activision?
Anticrawl @ Feb 1st 2008 6:40PM
Last night, Darth Vader came down from planet Vulcan and told me that if I didn't take Lorraine out that he'd melt my brain.
Anticrawl @ Feb 1st 2008 6:42PM
There's that word again; "heavy". Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?
Donald @ Feb 1st 2008 7:30PM
... I hate manure.
Mr Khan @ Feb 1st 2008 8:02PM
"Of course, from a group of Libyan Nationalists! They wanted me to build them a bomb, so i took their plutonium and in return gave them a shiny bomb casing full of used pinball machine parts!"