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> The fact that they've put themselves into a position to be bought out is its own strong signal they are considering exit strategies. This is 100% not true. C

by intev 4y ago

> The fact that they've put themselves into a position to be bought out is its own strong signal they are considering exit strategies. This is 100% not true. Companies don't have to put themselves in a position to be bought to have offers thrown at them. There are literally 100s of examples of this. Every company can be bought for a price. That's primarily the mismatch. This is the reason Instagram and Whatsapp sold for the prices they did at the time they did. When they were bought, everyone was shocked at the obscene sum of money for such a small team. In hindsight amazing purchase, but at that time Zuck had to throw an obscene sum at them to get them to say yes. Also public companies have a fiduciary duty consider *all* offers and see if its valuable for shareholders. At a certain price, it will become a, no brainer, extremely valuable offer. The only other hurdle is getting the ok from regulators which is where they are stuck now. The rest of your response hinges of the fact that we don't know the unknown variables and therefore the decision is not simple. But this argument could be made for literally every decision in life and we would all be stuck doing nothing. We have to make decisions based on what we know and accept that there will be a margin of error. Ideally we also know all the risk factors but that's literally impossible.

WorldMaker 4y ago
> Companies don't have to put themselves in a position to be bought to have offers thrown at them. We're past the stage where offers have been thrown at them. We're at the stage where wedding vows have started to be exchanged "pending regulatory approval". Companies do have to put a lot of work into those parts of the M&A stages (they've done multiple rounds of fit vetting and offer/contract approvals and investor handshakes, etc). At the waiting for regulatory approval stage they've already gone above and beyond any "fiduciary duty" they are expected to perform to already seeing the M&A as the "foregone conclusion". They've agreed to be bought and have put tons of work into being bought. A lot of companies don't come back from that when the regulatory agencies disapprove and shut the whole thing down. At the very least it is a morale blow for all the of the hard work of the M&A process up to that point and boards/investors often seem to become more certain that the next step is an exit, especially after the pain of a failed exit. > The rest of your response hinges of the fact that we don't know the unknown variables and therefore the decision is not simple. But this argument could be made for literally every decision in life and we would all be stuck doing nothing. We have to make decisions based on what we know and accept that there will be a margin of error. Ideally we also know all the risk factors but that's literally impossible. We aren't making any decisions here. Other than I guess picking sides in "anti-buyout" and "pro-buyout". I admitted I'm not feeling like my opinions weight to either side, I'm just pointing out the possible real world fallout of "anti-buyout". That's nothing to do with decisions at all. I am just pointing out all the unknowns because people are assuming that supporting "anti-buyout" means supporting the status quo and that's absolutely not the same thing.
elzbardico 4y ago
But in this case, we are not dealing with a hostile acquisition attempt. There's a clear intent to sell from Activision board.

by intev 4y ago

WorldMaker 4y ago

> Companies don't have to put themselves in a position to be bought to have offers thrown at them. We're past the stage where offers have been thrown at them. We're at the stage where wedding vows have started to be exchanged "pending regulatory approval". Companies do have to put a lot of work into those parts of the M&A stages (they've done multiple rounds of fit vetting and offer/contract approvals and investor handshakes, etc). At the waiting for regulatory approval stage they've already gone above and beyond any "fiduciary duty" they are expected to perform to already seeing the M&A as the "foregone conclusion". They've agreed to be bought and have put tons of work into being bought. A lot of companies don't come back from that when the regulatory agencies disapprove and shut the whole thing down. At the very least it is a morale blow for all the of the hard work of the M&A process up to that point and boards/investors often seem to become more certain that the next step is an exit, especially after the pain of a failed exit. > The rest of your response hinges of the fact that we don't know the unknown variables and therefore the decision is not simple. But this argument could be made for literally every decision in life and we would all be stuck doing nothing. We have to make decisions based on what we know and accept that there will be a margin of error. Ideally we also know all the risk factors but that's literally impossible. We aren't making any decisions here. Other than I guess picking sides in "anti-buyout" and "pro-buyout". I admitted I'm not feeling like my opinions weight to either side, I'm just pointing out the possible real world fallout of "anti-buyout". That's nothing to do with decisions at all. I am just pointing out all the unknowns because people are assuming that supporting "anti-buyout" means supporting the status quo and that's absolutely not the same thing.

elzbardico 4y ago

But in this case, we are not dealing with a hostile acquisition attempt. There's a clear intent to sell from Activision board.