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In December 2007, Activision announced that the company and its assets would
merge with fellow games developer and publisher, Vivendi Games. Ren¨¦ Penisson,
formerly a member of the Management Board of Vivendi and Chairman of Vivendi
Games, would serve as Chairman of Activision Blizzard. Bobby Kotick, once head
of Activision, was announced to become President and CEO of Activision Blizzard.
In April 2008, the European Commission permitted the merger to take place. The
commission essentially needed to approve that there weren't any antitrust issues
in the merger deal.5 On July 8, 2008, Activision announced that stockholders had
agreed to merge. The deal closed on July 9, 2008, and the total transaction was
an estimated $18.9 billion.6 Vivendi was the majority shareholder, with a 52%
stake in the company.6 The rest of the shares were held by institutional and
private investors and continue to be traded on the NASDAQ stock market, for the
first 10 trading days post closing as ATVID, and subsequently as ATVI.
Jean-Bernard Levy will replace Ren¨¦ Penisson as chairman of Activision
Blizzard.7
Activision and Blizzard Entertainment still exist as separate
entities.8 The holding company does not publish games under its central name and
instead uses its subsidiaries to publish games, similar to how Vivendi Games
operated before the merger.9 The merger makes Activision parent company of
Vivendi Games' former divisions until July 24, 2013.
While Blizzard retained
its autonomy and corporate leadership, other Vivendi Games divisions did not.
For example, long-time label Sierra ceased operation. With the merger, there was
a rumor that if a Sierra product did not meet Activision's requirements, they
"won't likely be retained."10 Some of Sierra's games such as Crash Bandicoot,
Spyro the Dragon and Prototype have been retained and are now published by
Activision.11 Also, due to the closure of Sierra, the Sierra Community Forums
servers have been shut down as of November 1, 2008.
Shortly after the
conclusion of the merger, Thomas Tippl, CFO, alluded to future layoffs stating
that the company "will exterminate some of our overlap through redundancy ¨C but
we will treat people fairly and respectfully in that process."13 Also, games
such as Br¨¹tal Legend, Ghostbusters: The Video Game, The Chronicles of Riddick:
Assault on Dark Athena, World in Conflict: Soviet Assault, 50 Cent: Blood on the
Sand, Zombie Wranglers, Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust and Wet were all
dropped from the publisher to be picked up by other companies.
On July 25,
2013, Activision Blizzard announced the purchase of 429 million shares from
owner Vivendi for $5.83 billion, dropping the shareholder from a 63% stake to
just 12% by the end of the deal in September. Following the conclusion of the
deal, Activision Blizzard became an independent company as a majority of the
shares are owned by the public. Bobby Kotick, along with Brian Kelly and other
investors such as Tencent own a 24.9% stake in the company. In addition, Kotick
remains the President and CEO, with Brian Kelly taking over as the Chairman.14
On October 12, 2013, shortly after approval from the Delaware Supreme court, the
company completed the buyback, along the lines of the original plan.
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