by Stacy Jones on Jul 11, 2012
Last month reports surfaced that Vivendi may be looking to sell off its some or all of its majority stake in Activision. A recent story from Reuters reports that several parties may now be in talks with Vivendi reps for their interest in Vivendis shares of Activision according to several sources.
"It's nothing official yet, but they've asked a bank to go and talk to possible buyers for Activision," said a source close to the Vivendi board.
Among those named to be in talks Microsoft, Time Warner, Chinas Tencent and private-equity sources. While nothing official has begun as of yet, if the report is accurate it does indicate that Vivendi has at least put out feelers for what may be a future sale.
Game industry analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan is not convinced that these are potential buyers. Speaking to GameSpot, Morgan stated:
"None of those make sense," he said. "TenCent is the only one actively acquiring, and they make much smaller acquisitions. Time Warner has never spent more than $150 million on game investments. Microsoft would lose a lot of value if Call of Duty was Xbox only. None of these are buyers."