Activist investor Carl Icahn has a new company on his radar: Take-Two Interactive. Fresh off the company’s poor fiscal Q4 earnings report, comes news that Icahn owns a roughly 11.3 percent stake, per an SEC filing. The filing states that Icahn believes Take-Two’s shares are “undervalued,” and that he could potentially “acquire additional shares” in the future.
But most telling is that Icahn may “seek to have conversations” with company reps from time to time—meaning Take-Two’s execs could start feeling the heat from his opinions about the way the business is being managed. Icahn has gone head-to-head with the boards of a number of companies; most recently it was Lionsgate, but his battle with Yahoo has perhaps been the most sensational.
Icahn bought over 9.1 million shares, or $70.6 million worth. He bought up two-thirds of his stake in December alone, per the LAT, right in the thick of Take-Two’s stock free-fall, after it lowered guidance and told investors that it wouldn’t reach profitability next year as planned.
Take-Two’s execs have only been able to focus solely core issues like driving revenue and long-term strategy in the past six months or so. The company spent much of 2008 and 2009 dealing with the fallout from issues like EA’s hostile takeover attempt (complete with an FTC subpoena), and an insider trading suit.
3 Comments
December 17, 2009
OK Mr. James Brightman . . . you want some interesting commentary? . . .
I feel that Zelnick purposely talked-down TTWO's Q4 performance, piled on a ton of charges, and sandbagged the estimates for 2010 on December 3, so his pals (like Carl Icahn) could buy into the company cheap. And Zelnick himself vested into a lot of stock and options at a low low price as well. And now in 2010 with high profile AAA titles like Bioshock 2, Red Dead Redemption, Mafia 2, Max Payne 3, and NBA 2K11 . . . TTWO will make a miraculous recovery in 2010 thus making Icahn and Zelnick a few million.
Crazy conspiracy theory? I don't think so but we'll see in a year or so.
December 18, 2009
Oh look . . . Icahn did a ton of trades between the December 3rd date and the release of his 13D
http://xml.10kwizard.com/filing_raw.php?repo=tenk&ipage=6658296
December 21, 2009
Considering the shady stock stuff that has happened with Take-Two in the past, the above scenario doesn't sound far from the truth.