As Activision Blizzard’s stock prices continue to fall on the stock market, an investor suggests that Disney should snap up the company. But is that realistic?
What has happened to Activision Blizzard on the stock market? According to Bloomberg, the value of Activision Blizzard has dropped by 43 percent since October 2018.
As a result, Activision Blizzard stocks are now available at a low price. An investor from Gerber Kawasaki Inc. is now advising the media giant Disney to acquire Activision Blizzard.
Why the investor believes this would be a good idea: According to Nick Licouris from the investment firm Gerber Kawasaki Inc. – which holds a stock stake worth $4.3 million – an acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Disney would be a good idea, as Activision Blizzard is increasingly focusing on esports. This, in turn, could be well showcased by Disney on its new streaming channels.
Additionally, Disney has some hot brands like Star Wars, Marvel, and others, which could optimally utilize the many development studios of Activision Blizzard. Overall, $152 billion in revenue from the gaming industry is expected for 2019. 45 percent of this is expected to come from mobile games.
Disney also already has a deal for the Overwatch League and Activision owns the popular mobile game Candy Crush Saga.
This is the likelihood of the Disney deal
What does Disney say about this? Disney is one of the top shareholders in Activision Blizzard, with a total stake of nearly $22 million. The company itself still reportedly has a market value of a whopping $37 billion even after recent losses.
Therefore, Disney would still need to invest quite a bit of money to acquire Activision Blizzard. It is also quite unlikely that this will happen because Disney’s CEO Bob Iger stated at an investors’ conference in February 2019 that Disney prefers to see itself currently in the role of a licensor rather than as a publisher.
Given these facts, it is unlikely that Disney will buy the gigantic and prohibitively expensive publisher company just because it is currently a bit less expensive.
The investor Nick Licouris from Gerber Kawasaki Inc. is likely hoping for a boost at Activision Blizzard through a possible acquisition by Disney.
Currently, there is no statement from Activision regarding a potential acquisition by another company.
According to a report from JP Morgan (via Bloomberg), Activision Blizzard is currently on the acquisition list of the Apple corporation.
