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Take-Two Interactive Software has made an offer to buy Codemasters, publisher of Dirt 5, for $ 973.8 million.
Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two has yet to close a deal, but made an offer and confirmed an announcement from the UK-based Codemasters board of directors about the offer. It’s another sign of consolidation in the games industry that had some great deals this year.
New York-based Take-Two, which owns labels and studios like 2K to Rockstar Games, offered $ 6.40 a share to buy Codemasters, both for cash and stock. The deal is dependent on due diligence, board approval, and other approvals.
Take-Two said the combination would bring together two world-class interactive entertainment portfolios that are complementary. Codemasters is strong in the racing genre with titles like F1, Dirt, and Grid. Last year, Codemasters acquired Project Cars and Fast & Furious maker Slightly Mad Studios for $ 196 million. Take-Two’s strengths are action games, Rockstar’s huge open worlds, sports, and strategy games like Civilization.
RW Baird analyst Colin Sebastian noted that the offering would involve around $ 230 million in cash and $ 700 million in Take-Two stock, with the net offering roughly equivalent to $ 930 million in cash.
Take-Two has 6,000 employees, including 4,600 internal developers. Most recently, Take-Two acquired Playdots, the mobile game publisher that created Two Dots, for $ 200 million in September.
Based in Southam, England, Codemasters has around 750 employees. In an earnings call yesterday, analysts questioned Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick about the acquisition activity after Microsoft said it would acquire Bethesda owner ZeniMax Media for $ 7.5 billion.
“We have seen an acceleration in M&A activity,” Zelnick said. “Obviously, Microsoft is acquiring Bethesda, which is a major transaction. You will continue to see increased M&A activity, just because of the heat around the category and capital that big companies are deploying. We have almost $ 2.4 billion in cash. We do not have any debt. We look forward to aggressively developing our business. “
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