Activision Will Consider Acquisitions Amid Recession (Update2)
March 4 (Bloomberg) — Activision Blizzard Inc., with $3 billion in cash and no debt, will consider acquisitions as the recession brings down the prices of potential targets, the company’s top publishing executive said.
“The combination of Activision holding a fair amount of cash and presumably prices being depressed, not only for publicly traded companies, but also likely for new intellectual property licensing rights, should certainly create opportunities,” Mike Griffith said yesterday in an interview in San Francisco.
The company, the world’s largest video-game publisher, is seeking to fill holes in its product line and expand internationally, said Griffith, a former Procter & Gamble Co. executive who is now president and chief executive of Activision Publishing.
Later this year, the company will release a racing game, an as-yet unnamed title from an acquired studio. ‘Singularity,’ also for release in 2009, adds a new shooting game, he said. Another coming game, “DJ Hero,” capitalizes on the top selling “Guitar Hero franchise.
Activision rose 20 cents, or 2 percent, to $10.07 at 4 p.m.
New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have gained 17 percent this year.
The company passed Electronic Arts Inc. as the largest game publisher last year after combining with the games division of Vivendi SA in a $9.8 billion transaction.
The combined company publishes the top-selling online game “World of Warcraft,” as well as “Guitar Hero” and the “Call of Duty” series.
Griffith didn’t mention specific targets, adding “we won’t rush to judgment just because we have cash. We will be very disciplined.”
