Analysis of Activision Blizzard

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J.D. Hold Activision Blizzard Inc. was created in a merger of Activision and Vivendi Games. Vivendi SA is a multinational mass media and telecommunication company based in Paris France. Vivendi is the majority owner Activision Blizzard with 61% of the company. Vivendi has a long and complicated history dating back to 1853. The company was originally named Compagnie Generale des Eaux, and was created as a water utilities company by Imperial decree of Napoleon III. In 1976 the new CEO Guy Dejouany took the company in a drastically different direction, culminating in a series of takeovers, bringing the sectors of waste management, energy, transportation and construction into their scope of business. The company founded the first pay-TV channel in France in 1983, called Canal+. The success of this experiment lead the company to pursue telecommunications and mass media under Dejouany’s successor at the company, Jean-Marie Messier. The name Vivendi was established in 1998, when it shed its focus on property for a more technology-based strategy. Property and construction divisions were sold off to the Vinci company, and Vivendi went on to merge with several successful telecommunications firms such as Maroc Telecom. One of its most notable merges was with NetHold, a European pay-TV operator that cornered most of the European market. Vivendi Universal Entertainment came about in December of 2000, when Vivendi merged with Canal+ television networks and purchased Universal Studios from the Canadian distilling company Seagram when Seagram’s assets were sold off. This rapid expansion came at a steep cost. Not all of Vivendi’s new acquisitions turned out as much revenue as had been anticipated. In its 2002 annual report Vivendi disclosed a company loss of 23.3 billion euros, setting a record for the worst loss for a French company in history. The

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