EA has reportedly been attempting to outbid Take-Two in their acquisition of Codemasters.
Codemasters is the development studio behind such Racing games as F1, Dirt 5, DiRT Rally, and Grid and has also given us games from other genres such as Operation Flashpoint: Red River and Clive Barker’s Jericho.
With this in mind, it is easy to see why there is currently a bidding war going on for the acquisition of this gaming giant.
Just over a month ago Take-Two announced that they had decided to purchase Codemasters for almost $ 1 billion. It has now come to light that EA (Electronic Arts) has reportedly put in a counter bid of more than Take-Two’s original offer in an attempt to acquire Codemasters.
When Codemasters was asked about the situation by Sky News they declined to comment whether or not they have accepted EA’s offer or if indeed they plan to do so.
Sky News reported that EA had “tabled a potentially knockout bid for Codemasters, trumping an offer agreed last month with Take-Two Interactive Software, maker of the Red Dead franchise.”
The actual amount of the offer from EA is not known yet. Sky News did divulge that it is working with bankers at UBS on its offer and that it will likely to be disclosed to the stock market on Monday, December 14, and will be a “substantial premium to Codemasters’ closing share price on Friday of 534p.”
Take Two’s offer is a cash-and-shares deal, which means that the deal will fluctuate depending on the stock market.
Some of the fund managers that own Codemasters have “reportedly expressed dissatisfaction with the Take-Two deal because of its equity component and the comparatively modest premium it represented to the British company’s undisturbed share price.”
Will this “dissatisfaction” give EA an in? only time will tell, but if EA does manage to outbid Take-Two they would be able to add more racing experts to their next racing game offering and that could be very valuable for the company.
Although if Take-Two acquired Codemasters they could possibly reignite their Midnight Club franchise with extra fervor.
Acquiring Codemasters would be a major accomplishment for either company and although it would be major news it is not this year’s largest acquisition with Microsoft agreeing to purchase Bethesda Softworks for $7.5 billion.
That was of course only the second-largest gaming industry acquisition of all time, after Tencent’s Supercell purchase for $8.6 billion.
For now, though we will have to wait for the outcome of the talks between Code masters, Take-Two, and EA to see who actually wins this billion-dollar bidding war and it will be interesting to see who eventually acquires this Gaming Giant.