Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that tech giant Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) $69 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard (ATVI) is likely to go ahead but beyond today’s deadline. Both companies don’t intend to walk away from the deal and will continue to seek regulatory approvals.
Pick the best stocks and maximize your portfolio:
- Discover top-rated stocks from highly ranked analysts with Analyst Top Stocks!
- Easily identify outperforming stocks and invest smarter with Top Smart Score Stocks
The deal has started to gain regulatory momentum after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) failed to block the deal in the U.S. District Court. Meanwhile, UK’s regulatory authority, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decided to begin fresh discussions on ways to deal with the UK Government’s concerns.
This move came after a British antitrust tribunal judge provisionally granted a conditional adjournment of the CMA’s lawsuit to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision. According to Bloomberg, the judge said that the court, “had been ‘gifted’ with new circumstances that showed ‘the game has moved on.'”
Microsoft commented on the CMA’s decision, “We’re grateful the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal has conditionally agreed to pause the formal appeal process subject to additional information. As we’ve said before, we are considering how the transaction might be modified to address the CMA’s concerns.”
The two companies had been looking at giving up some of their cloud-based gaming rights to a telecommunications, gaming, or internet-based computing company to address the U.K. CMA’s concerns.
Year-to-date, ATVI stock has gone up by more than 20%.
