EA extends Take Two offer until August

Tim Ingham Today, 1:59pm

Move represents the fourth time US publisher has postponed deadline

EA has once again pushed back the deadline for its bid for Take Two – this time until Tuesday, August 19th

The publisher’s deadline expired at the end of last week without any news, and EA has now announced that it has delayed the deadline for Take Two shareholders to accept or decline its bid.

The firm said that the delay would allow the Federal Trade Commission’s review of EA’s hostile bid to continue.

The announcement is the fourth time the publisher has postponed the expiration date for the deal – having previously pushed it back in April, May and June.

An EA investor release sent out today read:

Electronic Arts announced today that it has extended its tender offer for all of the currently outstanding shares of common stock (including the associated preferred stock purchase rights) of Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. ("Take-Two") (NASDAQ:TTWO) to 11:59
p.m., New York City time, on August 18, 2008, unless further extended.

The tender offer was previously set to expire at 11:59 p.m., New York
City time, on July 18, 2008.

‘Extending the tender offer allows the FTC review process to continue. The proposed transaction is still subject to certain conditions that include regulatory approval. EA retains the right to terminate the offer if the conditions are not satisfied.

‘As of 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on Friday, July 18, 2008, approximately 11,741,339 shares of Take-Two had been tendered in and not withdrawn from the tender offer.’

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/31305/EA-extends-Take-Two-offer-until-August

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Take-Two Shrugs as Electronic Arts Extends Offer

Other companies carrying out due diligence.

21 Jul 2008

Link to this: http://news.spong.com/article/15863

Electronic Arts, having extended its offer (but not increased the price of $25.74) for Take-Two for the fifth time, has received short-shrift from the Grand Theft Auto owner.

EA's extension sees Take-Two stockholders having until August 18th to accept and sell their stock at the asking price. This extends the offer that was due to end at 11:59pm on July 18th.

Take-Two, for its part has responded and in its response is news courting by other companies has extended beyond initial chats. Having slammed EA's offer as, "inadequate", the company's chairman, Strauss Zelnick, declares that, "we continue to engage in meaningful discussions with multiple parties, a number of whom have been conducting due diligence".

"Due diligence" is not usually a term thrown around lightly - in short, if you are going to carry it out on another corporate entity then you're going to have to pay for it. Due diligence is, indeed, a step up from chatting about things at the country club.

Wonder when Ea will let this go.

Someone needs to tell EA that she's just not that into him.

Although I would have loved to see the formal extension letter. "Dear stockholders, pursuant to our last offer lapsing, we are now extending the deadline until August at the latest. Should that deadline expire, severe consequences are inevitable, including but not limited to, a further extension of the deadline. Thank you."

It's just because they can't proceed with a hostile takeover until congress rules on wheter or not EA would have a sports monopoly.

The fact that they are even bothering to extend it would lead me to think they might have close to enough takers to pull off the hostile takeover when/if they get the go ahead from the feds.