Shareholders Approve Activision Blizzard Merger

Publisher Activision has announced that a special meeting of shareholders has given the company its approval to complete the proposed merger with Blizzard and Sierra parent company Vivendi Games. The company says that when the transaction closes on its expected July 9th date, Vivendi Games will become a new wholly owned subsidiary of Activision. Vivendi will at that time receive approximately 295.3 million newly issued shares of Activision common stock, and will purchase approximately $1.7 billion in additional shares, giving the company just over 50 percent ownership of Activision Blizzard. The proposal to merge the two companies was announced in early December 2007, and will in effect create the world’s largest pure-play online and console game publisher, expected to have approximately $3.8 billion in pro forma combined calendar 2007 revenues and the highest operating margins of any major third-party video game publisher.