Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT| (MS/ABK close)

Do you believe the deal will be approved?

  • Yes, will be approved without changes.

    Votes: 221 24.9%

  • Yes, will be approved but with structural changes to ABK.

    Votes: 102 11.5%

  • Yes, will be approved but only with behavioral concessions.

    Votes: 262 29.6%

  • No, will not be approved.

    Votes: 301 34.0%
  • Total voters
    886
  • Poll closed .
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There has been a lot of besmirching of my Queen in this thread since the CMA's decision:mad:
I've got your back Lulu!

Self Defense Fighting GIF
 
freefornow said:
Current agreement? Could MS/ACTI renegotiate? if EU approves and FTC fails?
(Not a hopium post, genuine question)
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That's the current agreement, but they're not gonna make one that says it's ok now if the CMA don't approve.

Those 4 regulators were selected there because they legally need their approvals the most in order to proceed with the combined entity's business.
 
Varteras said:
As far as the M&A landscape now, with this very large, very public deal being blocked, what is the likelihood that other major companies, like EA or T2, stay clear of any first-party attempts to acquire them? Would they look at this and think, "poison pill" for their near and mid-term plans?
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Well, for one, these are publicly traded companies. What I mean by that is - it is their fiduciary duty to consider all offers that could be to the benefit of their shareholders. They can be sued for not considering it, for breaching said duty. Its not just that EA or T2 would seek a buyer - if you're approached with an offer, if its sizeable enough, you have to go and take it back to your board. Big violations if you don't. Part of the reason break fees are negotiated to be so high is because it represents the opportunity cost that you'd miss out on during that time you've locked down your ability to do deals outside of this one corporate entity. So if you're an EA or T2, you'd consider it, but in light of whats happening right now, you best believe that break fee is gonna be fucking massive.

Hard to imagine Sony or Nintendo, being the only real first party in the market remaining, ever trying to make a deal for any entity as large as those two. That said, this doesn't rule out the possibility of Google, Apple, or Amazon coming in and making an attempt. All 3 of them would have an easier time getting through, although they probably would also get loads of blowback from regulators, maybe even enough to block them from purchasing too, given whats being cited here with MS and how some of them, namely Apple and Amazon, have technological advantages that are similar, minus the console position.
 
freefornow said:
Current agreement? Could MS/ACTI renegotiate? if EU approves and FTC fails?
(Not a hopium post, genuine question)
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While they could after July 18th, i'm not quite sure its in the best interest of Microsoft to essentially build a corporate fence around the UK, their 2nd biggest market for all of their gaming software & services. It would drastically change the nature of the deal in a perpetual basis, and the price of it would have to be lowered considerably as an offset. I'm not quite sure you're gonna convince ATVI to agree to a deal thats lower than $96 p/share, all so you can get it to go through, and you'd need to get re-approval.

On top of that, MS then needs to find external business partners to continue releasing CoD/ATVI output in the UK? They'd potentially not be able to offer CoD or any ATVI game into GP, even needing to make a UK specific GP in order to work around it. Like, imagine WoW having to shut down and get published by someone else in the UK? Its such a massive disruption of service for so much software for what is the 2nd biggest gaming market for Microsoft.

Its infinitely more likely MS just abandons the deal. Microsoft said that divestment of CoD was a non-starter - they'd never cut off a market as big as the UK for this if they aren't willing to divest CoD either.
 
SneakersSO said:
I believe the exact date is July 18th - I could be wrong on that but thats around the time the date is set anyway. That day is essentially the day the Merger Agreement expires, effectively, and when ATVI would become entitled to the full break-up fee. ATVI is under no obligation to re-sign another merger agreement, and doing so will require another round of negotiations, another vote from the ATVI shareholders/board, and almost assuredly, ATVI will ask for more than just $96 per share in order to agree to it.

There are a plethora of reasons why ATVI might not want to re-sign the merger agreement this time around. Signing it would bar ATVI from conducting any business deals with any other entities, and the time table to get the approval will stretch well into 2024, potentially even 2025, and the outcome is almost assuredly still a block. ATVI may not want to handcuff themselves for that long considering their biggest marketing deal is already set to expire in that timeframe, and that business partner is planning on launching a number of potential competitors into the space that CoD operates. Nintendo will also be signing deals with large 3rd party publishers in the next 6-24 months in an effort to launch their new hardware, and signing a merger agreement in July likely would prevent them from even considering it. On top of that, the $96 per share was already largely considered to be a vast inflation of the actual worth of ATVI - getting MS to agree to something north of $100 per share, when the prospect of it even being allowed is this negative, seems like a fool's errand.

Most importantly though - the environment that caused Kotick to seek a buyer in November of 2021 is simply not the environment ATVI is currently in. Back then, ATVI was facing some rough internal forecasts on the backs of their major revenue earners all having bad roads ahead of them, either due to delays or lowered earnings expectations. On top of that, in November 2021 is when the first major stories of lawsuits hitting ATVI got out. Those stories and their lawsuits along with the negative fiscal outlook all spelled a scenario where the board could want to remove Kotick from leadership, a scenario in which he'd wind up with nothing, so its very easy to draw the conclusion that Kotick sought a buyer in Nov. 2021 purely out of self-preservation/self-interest. However, ATVI is just not in that position anymore though - the bigger law suits have been settled or dropped, D4/OW2 launched and are bringing in revenue, and CoD is still trucking along. And on top of all that, they just got the right to $3b, for free. So if i'm Kotick, i'm not quite sure trying to draw out an acquisition that might just get blocked regardless is the best course of action come July.
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Terrific write-up. I would add that when Xbox' markets No 1 (FTC in USA) and No 2 (CMA in UK) are hell-bent to bork you over, the EU and China (that I'm sure will say no after the sour NetEase break-up) are actually irrelivant anyway. In reality, the deal is dead (just glance at ATVI/MS internal memos), the final PR about this fact is just a matter of time and more hot air pollution from clowns like Smith and Lulu.
 
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SenjutsuSage said:
I guess we'll just have to see, won't we? In my opinion it all comes down to what the EU does. If they're against then you're probably right. Outside of that. Till then saved.

It's the same british solicitors telling them now to appeal. You seem to be assigning a lot of brilliance to the very same body whose math errors and other mistakes led to an embarrassing reversal of everything they had said over the console SLC. There are key evidentiary problems with what they arrived at currently. It actually lacked much of the analysis they did for console gaming, and they made many of the same errors but worse, believe it or not. The CMA ran out of time and their pride wouldn't allow them to give Microsoft time to work it out. Microsoft also made some boneheaded mistakes in their remedies that are also their fault for not eliminating those as possible excuses the CMA could use.

You think Microsoft has no chance with its appeal? You're about to find out just how wrong you are, if something doesn't change before any actual appeal goes through. And no, I'm not suggesting the UK government overturn them. The CMA all on its own may realize its flaws as they once did before in this same decision. A potential EU approval, if it happens that way, will strengthen Microsoft's argument.

And, as you say, the CMA "slimmed the decision down." What exactly makes you think Microsoft might not contemplate a scenario where they won't allow the UK to kill their deal globally?

A lot of people have suggested a lot of things Microsoft would never do regarding the FTC, and would never do regarding the CMA. Guess what? Microsoft is doing them all even after the decisions. People better start contemplating a very real scenario where Microsoft legally constructs a framework where they just decide to not place Activision Blizzard games on xbox cloud at all in the UK. That's the ONLY problem they have with the deal in the UK, correct? I don't think Microsoft has a problem with just never putting Activision games on its cloud service in the UK. And before people tell me its impossible. No, it isn't. It's already done in different industries. There is a legal framework for it that exists in UK law.
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pour-drink.gif
 
What are the chances of getting a 10 year deal if we create a neogaf cloud service available only for gold members? Seems like everyone's getting one of those
 
The Alien said:
They could sell games/COD in UK....just not on the cloud. Not ideal, but a real option, I suppose - if it gets that far.
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People keep saying this… the same people who didn't understand the CMA was primed to block this deal after the release of their provisional findings in the first place…
 
The Alien said:
They could sell games/COD in UK....just not on the cloud. Not ideal, but a real option, I suppose - if it gets that far.
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Angry No Way GIF by Mashed


The deal says it needs CMA approval to pass, it doesn't have it, so it doesn't happen. Regardless of whatever fanboy drivel you've read is telling you.

They cannot just choose to buy it anyway.
 
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mansoor1980 said:
why would sony need precious time?
what is this , some end game boss fight?
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If MS took COD off Sony, Sony has less money to spend on its own development of games. Sony now has more time to plan for the loss of COD. Microsoft can absorb a huge loss and stay the course where Sony has to be more successful with fewer resources. Sony needs a live service game to be successful to protect them in any sudden loss of any major third party IP.
 
mansoor1980 said:
why would sony need precious time?
what is this , some end game boss fight?
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People saw the price of Activision, and thought Sony was doomed.

MS is incompetent when it comes competitions. They have yet to fix their windows store. No matter how much money they have, they can't save their own.
 
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