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Vivendi Plans To Buy Major Activision Stake

by Administrator

Vivendi plans on buying a controlling interest in rival Activision. The combined company will then rival Electronic Arts for the title of world’s largest video game company.

The combination of Santa Monica-based Activision, whose titles include “Guitar Hero,” “Call of Duty” and the “Tony Hawk” series, and Vivendi Games, which publishes “Crash Bandicoot” and owns the online role-playing franchise “World of Warcraft,” would create the world’s largest pure-play online and console game publisher, the companies said.

Vivendi Games will convert its equity into Activision shares valued at $8.1 billion, and Vivendi will buy an additional $1.7 billion of stock, for a total of $9.8 billion, giving Vivendi a 52 percent stake in a new company to be called Activision Blizzard. On that basis, Activision and Vivendi valued the combined company at $18.9 billion.

“This transaction has always stuck out as the way to become the number one most successful video-game publisher,” Activision Chief Executive Bobby Kotick said in an interview.

How this deal will impact the overall gaming industry remains to be seen.