At a conference hosted by Goldman Sachs, Activision’s CEO and chairman Bobby Kotick explained that Take-Two did not meet the requirements Activision has for acquisition. In an article on Games Industry, Kotick lays out those criteria:
“We’ve said that we need a history of profitability, good management, the proprietary technology for a franchise, history of multimillion unit sellers. They would have to be non-dilutive and operating margin accretive.
“And, for us, Take-Two didn’t fulfill those requirements. Maybe it does over the long-term for EA, but it doesn’t for us.”
Although Kotick’s response rings true for Activision, it doesn’t undermine the value of Take-Two to EA. For EA, there is nothing dilutive about an acquisition of Take-Two. In fact, the companies have similar organizational structures already, so it would be more of a consolidation. Certainly that’s the case for their sports divisions.
Kotick also noted that EA’s action appeared to be in response their merger with Vivendi. Out of courtesy, none of the analysts presents said, “Well, duh.”
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