Tag Archives: buyout

Take-Two has settled a shareholder lawsuit over turning down EA’s offer to buy a controlling stake in the company.

Filed by Prickett, Jones & Elliott for shareholder Patrick Solomon during March of last year, Solomon sued over Take-Two refusing to accept the $26 per share offer.

No money changed hands, only an agreement granting Soloman additional disclosure.

Take-Two plans to fight any reimbursement of fees and legal expenses should Soloman decide to file for it.

Namco Bandai owns 95 percent of D3Publisher as of this morning. The company purchased 19,990 shares today, costing 62,000 yen ($628) and putting a value on the buyout at 1,239,380,000 yen ($12.55 million).

It’s not known at this time how the merge will affect D3 Publisher America or Europe.

Namco made a bid for the company last month, and now that it’s settled the rights to publish Ben 10 games and the Vicious Engine will be at Namco’s disposal.

Hit the link for more.

MCV’s reporting that Square and Eidos have agreed buyout terms. Finalization on the deal is expected by May.

Square was unavailable for comment at the time of writing.

Following this, trading of Eidos shares will be suspended on April 21st and the cancelling of its share listings is due to occur the following day.

A settlement is hoped to be in place by May 6.

More through there.

Warner Bros has lent its support to a Square Enix bid for Eidos, saying it’ll add its 20 percent holding in the firm to a take-over.

Over 36 percent of outstanding shares have now been placed on Square’s side of the fence.

Eidos shares were trading at 32.25 pence when trading opened on Monday.

More on GI.

News of a Square Enix bid for Eidos has resulted in a major share boost for the Hitman-maker.

Eidos’s stock leapt over 117 percent today, with over 5 million shares being traded in the UK market’s first hour alone.

The price is currently at 30.5 pence ($.42).

Square Enix is expected to reveal more details about its deal with Eidos in March.

More over on GI.biz.

Namco has reached agreements to acquire 70 percent of D3′s shares, according to this Andriasang report.

The news apparently comes from a press release.

Namco hopes to acquire the full 100 percent of shares, at a price of 62,000 yen.

D3 will be turned into a wholly-owned Namco subsidiary.

Other detail from the press release outlines resulting benefits of the move:

• Cooperation on overseas content expansion using such products as D3′s BEN10 series.
• Increasing the value of D3′s content by tying it in with Bandai Namco Groups’ other “strategic business units” (the release mentions five such units: toys and hobbies, amusement facilities, game content, network, and video/music content).
• Use of Bandai Namco Games content with D3′s casual games series
• Use of D3′s content with Bandai Namco’s “multi-content” development system (this presumably refers to Bandai Namco’s ability to produce toys, anime and other products outside of games).
• For North American content development, improvement of development efficiency through shared use of technology (game engines, etc.)
• Cooperative development and promotions for mobile content
• Offering of new types of play and new content by using the combined knowhow of Bandai Namco Games and D3

Square Enix has made official an £84.3 million bid for Eidos.

The Eidos board has agreed to recommend the offer to shareholders, which is worth 32 pence per share.

The price represents a premium of 258 per cent over the price at the time the offer was made, January 14, and a premium of 91 per cent over the price average of the last three months.

Said Square boss Yoichi Wada: “Eidos is a talented developer and publisher of interactive entertainment products with a broad portfolio of highly successful mass market franchises, led by Tomb Raider, one of the most successful videogame franchises of all time.

“Eidos maintains a strong reputation for high quality development and proven expertise in creating characters and storylines that appeal to consumers. Eidos’ products are highly complementary to our business and will accelerate our aggressive expansion into Western markets.

“We believe that wide range of both companies’ quality products encompassing major genres will enable us to meet diversified customers’ expectations upon a global basis.”

This is all part of Square Enix boss Yoichi Wada’s push to go “global”.

More on GI.

Former Haze creative lead Derek Littlewood has told VG247 this morning that a now-confirmed sale of Free Radical to Crytek has brought “relief” to the UK firm.

“It’s clearly a really, really good thing,” he said.

“More than anything else I think everyone is relieved that we can now get back to concentrating on making games.”

A Crytek sale was rumoured last night and confirmed by Free Radical administrator ReSolve Partners this morning.

Free Radical entered administration at the end of last year, shedding 100 jobs over Christmas.

A formal announcement of the sale is expected later today.

US site Shacknews has been bought by GameFly, as confirmed here.

Fileshack’s gone with it. The outlet was formed in 1995. No financials terms were disclosed.

“GameFly has demonstrated a true understanding of and commitment to Shacknews’ gaming culture,” said Shacknews founder Steve Gibson.

“We are confident GameFly will protect the legacy and community we’ve established, while at the same time providing much needed resources to expand into new and exciting areas that would not otherwise be possible.”

Full details through there.

According to this Reuters report, Time Warner’s extended its share in Eidos to 20 percent.

The firm bought 10 million shares in the UK publisher to increase its stake.

Time Warner bought the shares on December 11 and now holds about 52.5 million shares in the company.

MCV’s rumouring that both Square and Warner are readying bids for Eidos.

The site’s quoting as source as saying: “I think Warner will still win, but it’s very interesting that Square have expressed this late interest. They are clearly looking for Western talent.”

Yoichi Wada has apparently already visited Denmark’s IO Studio and is set to return to the UK shortly to “move the deal forward.”

EA and Ubisoft were tagged this week as also having an interest in Eidos.

According to this Reuters report, quoting the Wall Street Journal, Sumner Redstone has sold his 87 percent share in Midway to investor Mark Thomas for $100,000, or $0.0012 a share.

Thomas will assume $70 million of senior secured and unsecured debt.

The sale amounts to a significant loss on Redstone’s investment but secures a hefty tax benefit as he negotiates other asset sales, the paper said.

Redstone has made the move to ease debt on his firm, National Amusements, which has about $1.6 billion in debt outstanding. Half of that will need to be repaid by year-end.

Blimey. More through the link.

Edge’s reporting a rumour piece that appeared in The Daily Mail this morning, which reckons SCi’s being looked at by EA and Ubisoft.

Apparently discussions of are at an “early stage” and that SCi has been approached by two separate publishers in a matter of weeks.

More through there.

According to this Reuters report, Koei and Tecmo have agreed terms to merge and will combine under a holding company in April next year.

The deal is worth $207 million.

Each Tecmo share will be exchanged for 0.9 shares in the holding company, while one share in the holding firm, called Tecmo Koei Holdings, will be allotted to each Koei share, allowing Koei shareholders to take three quarters of the new corporation.

More through there.

Activision’s bought Guitar Hero developer Budcat, the company’s confirmed.

The Iowa-based firm has worked on various versions of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith and Guitar Hero World Tour.

Budcat will now move on to “a new game in the Guitar Hero franchise.”

Press release after the link.

More »

Rather obviously, Epic’s issued a no comment on talk that Legendary Pictures – the firm behind the Gears of War movie’s funding – is looking to buy the developer.

“We don’t comment on acquisition rumours,” Epic boss Mike Capps told CVG.

So there we are.

Update: Epic says no comment on this.

Right purchasee – wrong purchaser. According to a report by Variety, there’s a “For Sale” sign in Epic’s window after all. However, it’s not EA that’s trying to wrangle a deal; it’s film financier Legendary Pictures.

Legendary Pictures, who’s previously thrown its considerable weight behind films like The Dark Knight and Superman Returns, is currently assisting Epic in the development of a Gears of War movie. Bringing Cliffy and co. under its umbrella, then, seems like a plausible next step.

Variety cites “multiple sources close to both companies,” who say that talks are already under way. Company execs, on the other hand, refuse to comment.

Considering where the report originates, though, we’d say this is a fairly safe bet. Of course, talks like this fall through all the time, so we may never even see an official announcement.

Either way, as long as we get Gears 2, we think we’ll make it.

By Nathan Grayson

SouthPeak’s confirmed it’s acquired Mike Wilson’s Gamecock.

Financial terms haven’t been disclosed.

“We are thrilled to be joining forces with SouthPeak to continue to bring great original titles from independent developers to market with a stronger sales and distribution reach,” said Gamecock boss Mike Wilson.

“We have followed each other’s progress closely over the last two years, and combining our team with theirs results in a very strong and well-rounded force in the market.”

Press release after the link.

More »

Infogrames has completed its acquisition of Atari, the US-based publisher, in a deal worth around $11 million.

The French company can now definitively unite the Atari brand, the use of which Infogrames has had the right to in Europe and other parts of the world for some time.

More on GI.

After a protracted game of cat and merger with EA and endless announcements of takeover talks with other parties, Take-Two confirmed today that it intends to remain independent.

“Take-Two’s Board of Directors has determined that it is in the best interests of stockholders to conclude its review of strategic alternatives and to continue operating and building Take-Two as an independent company,” the company said.

And that’s that. More on Reuters.