Take-Two Interactive No Longer Bidding on Codemasters
Paving the Way for EA to Seal the Deal
Over the last couple of months we’ve been following a sort of bidding war for the acquisition of racing game developer, Codemasters. In early November Take-Two announced that they would be purchasing the F1 developer for a hefty sum of $973 million USD, that is until December when EA put in a counterbid of $1.2 billion USD.
It wasn’t clear at the time how these competing offers would play out, but today, Take-Two Interactive has announced that their offer has officially lapsed.
“As noted in the Scheme Document (the “Scheme Document”) dated November 30, 2020, Take-Two was entitled to lapse the offer if the Court Meeting and General Meeting were not held on or before the 22
13/01/21 Comments Closed
Take-Two have officially dropped their offer to buy Codemasters which they originally had confirmed to be completed at some point in the first quarter of 2021, and that the purchase will cost Take-Two £726 million/$956 million. The deal had been approved by the boards of directors from both Take-Two and Codemasters.
However, a few weeks later in December, EA offered a counterbid with around a third more cash on the table. That deal was also accepted by the board of Codemasters leaving Take-Two in limbo. Here’s the rather technical statement from Take-Two.
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Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO) today announced that following the December 14, 2020 announcement by the Board of Codemasters that it had withdrawn its recommendation of the Company’s offer to acquire Codemasters Group Holdings PLC, Take-Two has, with the consent of the Panel, lapsed its offer. As noted in the Scheme Document (the “Scheme Docu