Activision stock jumped 1.6% to close at $81.50 on Wednesday. The difference between recent levels and the $95 offer price is a signal traders are concerned regulators may try to stop the deal due to antitrust concerns. Microsoft keeping games on rival platforms over the long term could alleviate some those worries.
Still, as
Barron's noted
when the companies announced the $68.7 billion deal in January, takeover arbitrageurs assign a roughly 60% likelihood of the deal being completed, given the difference between current levels and the offer price.
Bloomberg reported last month that Microsoft planned to honor an Activision commitment to Sony to release the next two mainline
Call of Duty games and a new version of its free-to-play
Call of Duty: Warzone on PlayStation consoles. Aviv Nevo, a professor at the Wharton School of Business, who previously was the chief economist in the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department, told
Barron's at the time that such a pledge may not have been enough
to satisfy regulator
