US duo carve up $19bn Vivendi video game deal
Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom have won lead advisory roles on the merger of computer games giants Vivendi and Activision. The $18.9bn (£9.2bn) deal will see the makers of best-selling computer games including James Bond and World of Warcraft come together to form the world's largest video games publisher ahead of market rival Electronic Arts.
December 04, 2007 at 10:33 AM
2 minute read
Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom have won lead advisory roles on the merger of computer games giants Vivendi and Activision.
The $18.9bn (£9.2bn) deal will see the makers of best-selling computer games including James Bond and World of Warcraft come together to form the world's largest video games publisher ahead of market rival Electronic Arts.
Skadden corporate partner Brian McCarthy is to lead the team for NASDAQ-listed Activision, which makes games for Sony's Playstation3 and Microsoft's Xbox360 and is best known for franchises including Guitar Hero and the Tony Hawk series.
McCarthy leads a nine-partner team that also includes fellow corporate partner David Eisman, corporate finance partner Edward Welch and antitrust partner Cliff Aronson.
Ruth Fisher, co-chair of Gibson Dunn's media and entertainment division, is heading up the team acting for French entertainment group Vivendi, which will combine Activision with its own existing California-based games business, Blizzard.
The merged company will operate as Activision Blizzard and is set to have combined 2007 revenues of $8.1bn (£3.94bn).
Vivendi turned to Salans and US duo Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe and Weil Gotshal & Manges when it launched a £1.15bn claim against Deutsche Telecom in 2005, alleging the German communications giant had wrongfully terminated negotiations relating to the sale of Vivendi's Polish mobile phone subsidiary, Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa.
Vivendi has annual revenues of over €20bn (£14.41bn) and nearly 35,000 employees worldwide.
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