Wall Street is betting that US antitrust enforcers could unravel one of the largest mergers in American history.
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Activision Blizzard will delay a Call of Duty game that had been planned for next year, the first time the franchise will be without an annual mainline release in nearly two decades.
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway acquired nearly $1-billion of shares in Activision Blizzard just before Microsoft agreed to buy the videogame maker.
A whopping $600-billion of cash stashed at mega-cap technology companies could drive a wave of deal-making in the sector.
Sony Interactive Entertainment will acquire Bungie in a deal valued at $3.6-billion, making it the latest in a wave of consolidations sweeping the gaming sector.
A couple of high-profile takeovers of videogame companies has stirred optimism that acquisitions will help technology stocks recover. That sentiment may be premature.
Microsoft’s pitch, as with its other large gaming deals, heavily leveraged gaming chief Phil Spencer’s decades-long industry experience.
Microsoft said on Tuesday it would buy videogame publisher Activision Blizzard in an all-cash transaction valued at $68.7-billion. It’s the biggest-ever acquisition in the IT industry.
Activision Blizzard is facing a fierce backlash and calls for a boycott after a unit of the American game company punished a player for supporting Hong Kong’s protest movement, the latest cultural clash between the US and China.
Shares of the biggest videogame makers tumbled on Monday after President Donald Trump blamed the industry for contributing to a culture of violence in the US.