Further EA Take-Two Fallout

EA’s attempt at a hostile takeover of publisher Take-Two continues, so here’s a summary of what’s been happening. Take-Two has rejected the offer and hinted it would be looking at alternative business combinations (read: mergers in order to avoid being purchased). The analysis is that this is an odd move.

“We’re frankly surprised by Take-Two’s rejection of EA’s offer,” said Pachter, noting that shares of the publisher were trading at $17 immediately before the offer, and that shares of the company have not reached near EA’s asking price of $26 since new management took over, and that the company “has consistently lost money for the last two years.”

“We think that the Board has virtually no chance of finding a better offer,” he said, and that “this deal… makes more sense for EA than for any other company, primarily because of the synergies from consolidation of the two companies’ sports businesses. No other company is in the position to realize those synergies, which we believe are substantial.”

Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.

In a bit of comedy relief news, news network CNET (Gamespot, News.com) has reacted disgruntled at – get this – the publisher’s usage of the media for this. Because everyone knows CNET doesn’t let publishers use the media to its own ends, nooo.

I know it’s nothing new in the fast-paced world of hostile takeovers, tender offers, and other forms of mergers and acquisitions, but it’s beyond obvious that both Take-Two and EA are using the press–and our outreach to the public–to try to negotiate the best terms in whatever marriage the two eventually end up in.