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Take-Two Interactive, Inc. (TTWO)
EA extends T2 Offer until June 16th
EA extends T2 Offer until June 16th
MCV - May 19, 2008
Submitted by deftangel (291) at 6:01AM PST on May 19, 2008
The new deadline gives Take Two’s investors until 11.59pm (EST) on June 16th to accept or decline EA’s offer of $25.74-per-share (around $2bn).
A release from EA sent out today also leaves the company the option of extending the deadline yet again should it feel the need. ‘As of 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on Friday, May 16, 2008, approximately 6,210,261 shares of Take-Two had been tendered in and not withdrawn from the tender offer’.
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1Mushashi posted on Take-Two Interactive, Inc. (TTWO) at 6:25AM PST on May 22, 2008. RE: EA extends T2 Offer until June 16th@apujanata,
I think your GTAIV sales expectations were unrealistic, GTASA had 600K increase over GTASA sales with greater hardware install base.
GTAIV had 850K increase over GTASA with less than half hardware install base and higher game cost. This sales performance is impressive, especially compared to Halo 3 increase over Halo 2.[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 5 ]bids
1apujanata posted on Take-Two Interactive, Inc. (TTWO) at 5:42PM PST on May 21, 2008. RE: EA extends T2 Offer until June 16th@Mushashi,
Well, my personal rule for expectation : benchmark them against your peer.
Example :
- Am I doing as well or above average when compared to my colleague (those that have id range in 7189 +- 1000, or 6189 - 8189)
- Am I doing as well or above average when compared to those who have the same range of networth (say 23 Million +- 5 Million, or 18 Million - 28 Million)
- Am I doing as well or above average compared to my previous effort in prediction league ? since I didn't have that experience, no benchmark in this category.
So, if I am producing / selling GTAIV, I would compare its sales against :
A. GTA SA, GTA VC and GTA III.
B. other games in the same genre (Saints Row, Oblivion, Godfather etc).
C. other long-time series in the different genre (such as Zelda, Mario, Halo, MGS, to name a few)
I am sure that no one expected GTA IV to have 500% increase over GTA SA, but is it really unreasonable to expect, say, 60% or 70%, improvement from GTA SA to GTA IV ?[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 14935 ]bids
1Mushashi posted on Take-Two Interactive, Inc. (TTWO) at 4:41AM PST on May 21, 2008. RE: EA extends T2 Offer until June 16th@apujanata,
The danger with percentage increase expectations is like how you could be disappointed by your or myself current monthly DKP increase, the first few months, you were posting gains of 100% or more, now you are only posting 40% monthly gain and probably lower in future. Are you disappointed? I am more happy now with lower percentage monthly gain than when I had only 1 million DKP and 200% monthly gain ;-)
Also, GTA SA could be considered a disappointment because it failed to match growth from GTA III to GTA VC, over 500% increase :-)[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 5 ]bids
1apujanata posted on Take-Two Interactive, Inc. (TTWO) at 5:42PM PST on May 20, 2008. RE: EA extends T2 Offer until June 16th@Mushashi,
You have to remember one thing : expectation can be different for every one. EA's expectation and T2's expectation and stock market's expectations can be the same, or it could be way different.
Example : T2 might expect 5 Million WW first week, while EA might expect 3 Million WW first week, and stock market might expect 10 Million WW first week.
It is true that GTAIV perform better compared to GTASA, but the improvement is only 39%. GTASA improved 100%+ compared to GTAVC (see page 4, second chart of this article. If I expect 75% or more improvement from GTASA, then I would define GTAIV's performance as "under expectations".
After explaining the "under expectation" definition, please note that GTAIV's "under expectation" is all opinion on my part, since I am not aware of public announcement of T2's expectation of GTAIV, and neither did EA's nor stock market's expectation of GTAIV sales,[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 14935 ]bids
1Mushashi posted on Take-Two Interactive, Inc. (TTWO) at 4:40AM PST on May 20, 2008. RE: EA extends T2 Offer until June 16th@apujanata,
I would not say that GTAIV is performing under-expectations, unless you expected it to sell 20 million copies on day 1 ;-)
The next-gen.biz analysis showed that GTAIV sold at a faster rate than all previous GTA games, wether it will have same level or greater longterm sales is a different thing.[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 5 ]bids
1apujanata posted on Take-Two Interactive, Inc. (TTWO) at 12:12AM PST on May 20, 2008. RE: EA extends T2 Offer until June 16th@zukaus,
I didn't mention my opinion to you yet, since I don't think my opinion is worthy. Reason :
- I do not stay in US
- I do not really follow US game company
- I do not follow US stocks, only index (only DJ, Nasdaq, SP 500)
Since you asked for my opinion, then :
- I believed that Houser's comment re Riccitiello is only to keep EA interested and extend their offer (to prevent what happened to Yahoo bid from happening to T2 bid).
- I believed that this extension is to see whether GTAIV can keep T2 afloat or not. If GTAIV sales couldn't keep T2 in green (sales worse than expectation), then T2 will take EA bid (at $26). If GTAIV sales can keep T2 in green (sales much better than expectation), then T2 will get EA to revise upward their bid (maybe $30 or more).
Since I hadn't done any cash flow analysis, review of last 5 years BS and IS, and cash burn rate of EA, I couldn't give a more detailed analysis / opinion.
Personally, I believe that so far, GTAIV performance is under-expectation. I think there is a slight chance (< 5%) Microsoft might be interested to purchase T2, now that their Yahoo bid are withdrawned. However, whether Microsoft are willing or not to buy a game company is a different story. I don't they will do it, unless they can get it for cheap (like they did when they buy Rare from Nintendo). Please note that "cheap" is all based on perspective. What is cheap for EA might be expensive for Microsoft, or vice versa.[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 14935 ]bids
1zukaus posted on Take-Two Interactive, Inc. (TTWO) at 7:28PM PST on May 19, 2008. RE: EA extends T2 Offer until June 16th@apujanata,
Oh and one more thing, my guess is probably as good as yours, so what do you think is going to happen? I don't think I ever got your opinion on this whole T2/EA thing. Anybody else got any thoughts?[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 4 ]bids
1zukaus posted on Take-Two Interactive, Inc. (TTWO) at 7:20PM PST on May 19, 2008. RE: EA extends T2 Offer until June 16thWell, nothing has really changed with the current offer on the table and my opinion still remains the same too. I believe EA will eventually raise their bid and that T2 will accept the higher offer.
I actually thought that a deal was really close to happening when just days before the original deadline passed, Rockstar founder Sam Houser praised EA CEO John Riccitiello as the "real deal" in an interview with the WSJ. He also said he wouldn't have any problem with EA acquiring T2. Houser basically never talks and all of a sudden just days before the deadline the he's in the newspapers saying he's down with EA? I thought for sure a deal was almost done, but I guess not yet.
I am also surprised that GTA IV did not move more 360's or PS3's. GTA only had one week in April but it's still the poorest showing for those two systems all year. It also seems to have had no effect on Nintendo, so much for GTA IV the Wii-slayer.[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 4 ]bids
1apujanata posted on Take-Two Interactive, Inc. (TTWO) at 5:57PM PST on May 19, 2008. RE: EA extends T2 Offer until June 16th@deftangel,
Zukaus, do you think T2 will take this (since GTA IV seem to do not as well as some people hope), or are they still waiting for better offer from EA (since GTA IV is doing as well as some people hope) ?
I sure wish GTA IV move more H/W in NPD Apr 08.[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 14935 ]bids
24deftangel posted on Take-Two Interactive, Inc. (TTWO) at 6:01AM PST on May 19, 2008. Article: EA extends T2 Offer until June 16thThe new deadline gives Take Two’s investors until 11.59pm (EST) on June 16th to accept or decline EA’s offer of $25.74-per-share (around $2bn). A release from EA sent out today also leaves the company the option of extending the deadline yet again should it feel the need. ‘As of 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on Friday, May 16, 2008, approximately 6,210,261 shares of Take-Two had been tendered in and not withdrawn from the tender offer’.[ Oracle ] [ Level 21 ] [ Rank: 291 ]
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Mistake, I mistyped first comparison:
I think your GTAIV sales expectations were unrealistic, GTASA had 600K increase over GTAVC sales with greater hardware install base.