Activision Blizzard has reached an agreement to buy 429 million of its shares from the French entertainment company Vivendi, a deal worth $5.83 billion. Activision Blizzard chief exectutive Robert Kotick has also said that he and co-chairman Brian Kelly are forming an investment group to buy 172 million shares for $2.34 billion, bringing the total cost of the buyout to right around $8.2 billion.
Vivendi will still hold 83 million shares, or 12 percent, of Activision Blizzard. This is a big move from Activision Blizzard. Kotick has praised the move.
“We should emerge even stronger,” he said. “The transactions announced today will allow us to take advantage of attractive financing markets while still retaining more than $3 billion cash on hand to preserve financial stability.”
Vivendi Games, who owned Blizzard, merged with Activision in 2008 to form Activision Blizzard, and became the largest video game publisher in the world.
We’ll see how, or if, Activision Blizzard changes over the coming months.
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