What was expected to happen with some minor expectations and practically it is up to the regulators, at this time just one party, to see if the consumer’s interest is best if Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard or not.
Besides some shareholders sued to stop the purchase of the Activision Blizzard conglomerate a few months ago, that didn’t stop the voting that happened today.
And the results came in and Activision Blizzard has announced that over 98% of shares voted in favor of the deal, paving the way for the acquisition to go through, if it was for them that is.
The TLDR of the result of the close of the transaction, Microsoft owning Activision Blizzard and its umbrella of studios and IPs, will become the third biggest video game company following Tencent and Sony.
Surprisingly, The Department Of Justice has confirmed that it will not join the FTC for the traditional scrutiny that the $69 billion acquisition will face.
Wall Street believes that the deal will fell off
As Bloomberg's article this morning makes clear, today's shareholder vote was always expected to pass. The market uncertainty is due to an FTC, led by 2021 appointee Lina Khan, that's newly empowered and motivated to pursue tech anti-trust cases with vigor
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) April 28, 2022
Early in the morning there were reports highlighted by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier that various analysts from Wall Street believe that the deal will not go through FTC as the appointed leader, Lia Khan, is an tech antitrust leaning advocate and would influence the scrutiny’s guidelines.