Take Two Interactive Software has made an offer to buy out Codemasters. The offer, a cash and shares mix of $973.8 million, has been confirmed by Warwickshire-based Codemasters. It sounds like a deal is in its advanced stages and almost complete except for formalities like the approval by respective boards of directors and due diligence. As VentureBeat reports this is more evidence that consolidation in the games industry is a serious trend.
New York based Take Two is cash rich at the moment and well aware of rivals consolidating – like the recent news of Microsoft acquiring Bethesda for $7.5 billion. Thus it has been looking for bargains to complement its developer portfolio. Some would say that Take Two is strong in genres like action games, open world adventures, sports and strategy titles. It owns the likes of 2K and Rockstar Games, for example.
Codemasters is of course best known for racing games, particularly those featuring automobiles and has some great IPs like F1, Dirt, and Grid. Last year it acquired Project Cars and Fast & Furious games maker Slightly Mad Studios for $196 million.
Take Two has approx 6,000 employees, which includes 4,600 in-house developers. Codemasters has just 750 employees. At the moment Take Two seems to be cash rich with almost $2.4 billion in cash and no debts. Even so, the Codemasters transaction is expected to be a cash/stock offer of about $230 million in cash and $700 million in Take-Two stock.
Both sides appear to be positive about the deal, so it should end up being signed and sealed. Under UK City Code concerning takeovers and mergers Take Two now has until 4th December to commit to its offer or walk away from the process.
