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Activision Blizzard completes share buyback

Bobby Kotick points to China as focus of future growth

Activision Blizzard and an investor group led by CEO Bobby Kotick has completed its share buyback from parent company Vivendi.

The deal was finalised the day after a Delaware court lifted an injunction that came into effect after another Activision Blizzard shareholder asked for a shareholder vote to approve the deal. Activision Blizzard now owns $5.83 billion of stock, with Kotick and his partners owning $2.34 billion. Vivendi's stake has been reduced to 12 per cent.

"It reduces the uncertainty about our business and allows us to get back to focusing on making great games," Kotick said in an interview with Bloomberg.

During its five years as a unit of Vivendi, Activision Blizzard was consistently one of its strongest performers in terms of revenue and profit. However, the same was not true of Vivendi's other holdings, and the buyback will give Activision Blizzard the freedom to pursue opportunities for growth.

Kotick told Bloomberg that a focus for that growth will be the burgeoning games market in China. Tencent, China's leading online company, is one of the partners in Kotick's investment group.

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Matthew Handrahan

Editor-in-Chief

Matthew Handrahan joined GamesIndustry in 2011, bringing long-form feature-writing experience to the team as well as a deep understanding of the video game development business. He previously spent more than five years at award-winning magazine gamesTM.

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