A large bet on Activision Blizzard stock by billionaires Barry Diller, Alexander von Furstenberg, and David Geffen. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal published on Tuesday. They were under investigation by federal prosecutors and securities regulators in January. Just days before, the videogame company agreed to be acquired by Microsoft.
Following a recent Activision share price of around $80 (roughly Rs. 6,100), according to a report citing people familiar with the matter, IAC Chairman Diller, his stepson von Furstenberg, and music mogul Geffen have an unrealised profit of approximately $60 million (roughly Rs. 459.58 crores) on an options trade, based on the recent Activision share price.
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Whats more on Microsoft-Activision!
According to the article, the Justice Department examines whether any of the options transactions violated insider-trading regulations, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is launching a civil insider-trading probe in its own right.
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Reuters reached out to the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission for comment but did not respond. In addition, Reuters reached out to IAC for comment but did not respond and could not contact von Furstenberg and Geffen for a quick comment.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Diller acknowledged that authorities had approached the three but noted that none of them has critical non-public information regarding the Microsoft-Activision merger.
“It was just a fortunate gamble,” Diller said in an interview with the Journal. Moreover, “We took no action based on any information received from anybody. It’s one of those happy coincidences, isn’t it?”
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In January, Microsoft announced intentions to acquire Activision, the creator of the video game “Call of Duty,” for $68.7 billion (approximately Rs. 526224.14 crores), in what is believed to be the largest gaming industry acquisition in history, for instance.
