Take
Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. (TTWO), the maker of the 'Grand Theft Auto' video games, bought back a stake in the company from activist investor Carl Icahn, prompting Icahn's designated board members to resign.
The company is buying 12.02 million shares at yesterday's closing price of $16.93 a share, for a total of $203.5 million, according to a statement today. Under an almost four-year-old pact between Take-Two and the Icahn Group, the investment firm had agreed that its directors would leave the board if Icahn sold its stake. That led the board members -- Brett Icahn, Jim Nelson, and SungHwan Cho -- to step down today.
Icahn shook up Take-Two's board in January 2010 after acquiring about 11 percent of the video-game company. At the time, the investor said the company was undervalued. In the most recent quarter, the release of 'Grand Theft Auto V' helped boost earnings. Excluding some items, profit soared to $325.6 million, or $2.49 a share, from $10.2 million, or 11 cents, a year earlier, the New York-based company said in October. Take-Two shipped about 29 million copies of the game, a fantasy of thug life in Southern California.
'This share repurchase reflects our confidence in the company's outlook for record results in fiscal 2014,' Strauss Zelnick, chief executive officer of Take-Two, said in today's statement.
LionTree Advisors and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP served as Take-Two's advisers on the transaction.
To contact the reporter on this story: Nick Turner in New York at nturner7@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net
Enlarge image 
Post a Comment for "Take"