EA Gets Serious About Buying Take-Two, Takes Out $1 Billion Loan
by John Kershaw on May 11, 2008
EA have been taking a few not-so-subtle strides in recent months regarding their desire to take over the world buy Take-Two. After being turned down several times, they don’t appear to be taking no for an answer, instead securing a loan of one billion dollars to help with the takeover.
Several financial institutions including Morgan Stanley are being used to generate the money needed. Game Politics spoke to Michael Pachter, an analysis for Wedbush-Morgan who had this to say;
It is something that should be expected. After [the acquisition of] Pandemic/BioWare, EA has only around $1.7 billion in available cash… The Take-Two deal is around $2.1 billion… so they’re short. They also probably need around $400 million in available cash for working capital needs, so they need to raise around $800 million to complete the deal. The extra $200 million is just a cushion, although I suppose it could be construed as how much higher they’re willing to go [for Take-Two]…
Could this be EA’s final step in quelling Take-Two’s fight for independence? Sadly it seems all but inevitable now, as EA have enough money to force though the deal. Since turning hostile, EA no longer need to consult Take-Two on the offer and are going directly to the shareholders.
Source: Game Daily
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on May 11, 2008 5:45 pm
Wow. A BILLION DOLLAR LOAN? How does that even work? Hm. Well, I guess I’m not too surprised that its happening, but its too bad it turned hostile. Looks like take two is gonna get assimilated into the machine.
on May 11, 2008 11:59 pm
God damnit no >_
on May 12, 2008 7:53 pm
i hope this doesn’t happen, all they will do is shut down nba and nhl 2k so you (if you want to play any sports game) can only buy ea sports no matter how trash and roster update only. thier games are, they own football and look at the lack of innovation with that.Oh, i,m sorry they will stretch out new features though it should be in the game in the first place!