A recent filing from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reports that talks between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard regarding the recent acquisition occurred days after the report on CEO Bobby Kotick.
An SEC filing was published on Friday (February 18) stating that Kotick and Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer entered talks about the acquisition on November 19, just three days after a report alleged that Kotick had known about Activision Blizzard’s misconduct for years.
In September of last year, it was announced that Activision Blizzard was cooperating with an SEC investigation into the allegations of sexual harassment at the company, which this filing refers to.
Part of the SEC filing reads: “On November 19, 2021, in the course of a conversation on a different topic between Mr. Spencer and Mr. Kotick, Mr. Spencer raised that Microsoft was interested in discussing strategic opportunities between Activision Blizzard and Microsoft.”
As reported by CNBC, Activision Blizzard shares fell by 11 per cent in the four trading days after the Kotick story. It was also reported on November 18 that Spencer sent out a company-wide email to Microsoft employees stating that he was “evaluating all aspects” of the relationship between the two companies and that Microsoft was already “making ongoing proactive adjustments”.
The SEC filing also states that Kotick reached out to a few other companies before the deal between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard was announced. However, the report did not name these companies.
It was later announced on January 18 that Microsoft would be acquiring Activision Blizzard for around £50billion ($68billion USD).
In other news, FromSoftware has released a new Elden Ring trailer that has provided an overview of the game’s world and gameplay systems ahead of its release on February 25 for PC and consoles.
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