GTA, BioShock, Midnight Club up for grabs?
Speculation, don't you just love it? Analyst Mike Hacke from Janco Partners believes that it's only a matter of time before American publisher, developer, and distributor, Take-Two are taken over by one of their competitors."In consideration of [Take-Two’s] large stable of owned and internally developed IP, along with a washing of their chequered corporate profile, we remain convinced the Company will eventually be acquired at a meaningful premium to their current share price," Hickey said in a note to investors.
ELectronic Arts are one of the few publishers that has the cash in the bank to afford to buy Take-Two, whose business is rumoured to be worth approximately $1 billion, and with all those franchises ripe for the picking, including GTA, BioShock,Max Payne and the 2K sport's brand, they'll almost certainly be pushing their way to the front of the queue should Take-Two sell up.
Of course, this could all be utter garbage, analysts have been wrong in the past, and In Take-Two's recent fourth quarter financial report, Strauss Zelnick, Chairman of Take-Two seemed confident on the company's future.
"Fiscal 2007 was a year of progress for Take-Two, capped by better-than-expected bottom line financial performance in the fourth quarter. The Company has benefited from initiatives to streamline operations and improve our cost structure, while continuing to expand our portfolio of powerful video game franchises. As a result of this progress, Take-Two today is sharply focused on its core publishing business and is operating more productively and efficiently, while continuing to foster the extraordinary creative talent of our development teams. We are fully committed to building on this solid foundation to produce great entertainment and to enhance shareholder value," he said.
It's worth remembering that the same rumours surfaced earlier this year after Take-Two's stock suffered serious problems, but nothing materialised. Rumoured to be front of the queue to buy the company then were Ubisoft or Activision. Looks like we'll have to just wait and see what happens on this one, should be interesting.
Source :: Game Daily
