Microsoft acquires Activision Blizzard
Brendan Sinclair
Managing Editor
Tuesday 18th January 2022
Microsoft has reached a deal to acquire Activision Blizzard, the company confirmed today.
Sarah E. Needleman with the Wall Street Journal broke the news this morning, saying the outlet's sources told it the Xbox maker was nearing an agreement to buy the Call of Duty company.
Six minutes later, Bloomberg's Dina Bass put a dollar figure on it, saying sources put the value of the deal at nearly $70 billion.
That would be a significant premium over Activision Blizzard's market cap of nearly $51 billion, but like many game outfits, the Call of Duty and World of Warcraft publisher's share price has been trending downward over the last year. Activision Blizzard has also been the subject of immense public criticism since a July lawsuit by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing alleged pervasive gender discrimination at the publisher.
Microsoft soon confirmed the deal had been reached, and put a price point of $95 per share on the deal, a 69% premium over Activision Blizzard's Monday closing price of $65.39.
"This acquisition will accelerate the growth in Microsoft's gaming business across mobile, PC, console and cloud and will provide building blocks for the metaverse," the company said.
Microsoft added that the addition of Activision Blizzard would make it the world's third-largest game company by revenue, behind only Tencent and Sony.
"Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms," said Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella. "We're investing deeply in world-class content, community and the cloud to usher in a new era of gaming that puts players
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