Vivendi and Activision to Create Activision Blizzard

Wow, I did not see this coming, especially on a Sunday morning, but this should to be very interesting for the upcoming year… Here are the details from the Press Release…

Activision, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI) and Vivendi (Euronext Paris: VIV) today announced that they have signed a definitive agreement to combine Vivendi Games, Vivendi’s interactive entertainment business — which includes Blizzard Entertainment’s(R) World of Warcraft(R), the world’s #1 multi-player online role-playing game franchise — with Activision, creating the world’s largest pure-play online and console game publisher. The new company, Activision Blizzard, is 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. On closing of the transaction, Activision will be renamed Activision Blizzard and will continue to operate as a public company traded on NASDAQ under the ticker ATVI.

Activision, one of the world’s leading independent publishers of interactive entertainment, is best known for its top-selling franchises, including Guitar Hero(R), Call of Duty(R) and the Tony Hawk series, as well as Spider-Man(TM), X-Men(TM), Shrek(R), James Bond(TM) and TRANSFORMERS(TM). Blizzard Entertainment, a division of Vivendi Games, has projected calendar 2007 revenues of $1.1 billion, operating margins of over 40% and approximately $520 million of operating profit. Blizzard owns the #1 multi-player online role-playing game franchise, World of Warcraft, which currently has over 9.3 million subscribers worldwide. Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, Warcraft(R), StarCraft(R) and Diablo(R) games account for four of the top-five best-selling PC game titles of all time. Vivendi Games also owns popular franchises, including Crash Bandicoot(TM) and Spyro(TM).

Also, Sierra Online is part of Vivendi Games, which is part of this deal. The company brought us F.E.A.R, F.E.A.R Files, TimeShift, and Crash of the Titans.