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Current Activision Blizzard CEO, Bobby Kotick, will remain as the CEO of the company should Microsoft's $69 billion (USD) acquisition be blocked by regulators. This is according to sources speaking to Fox Business. They flatly say that if the deal falls through, Bobby Kotick "will absolutely remain at the gaming giant to run the company."
Unfortunately, it's not particularly clear what Kotick's fate would be should the acquisition actually go through. There have been differing reports ever since this acquisition was first announced with some saying that Kotick would stick around while others say that he would leave, but not before receiving a $15 million payout.
According to the same Fox Business sources, Activision Blizzard says that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the UK is the "only real potential roadblock" to the deal going through. The sources go on to say that both Microsoft and Activision Blizzard are confident that they can convince the CMA that this merger would not harm competition. So far, the CMA's initial investigation into the deal found that approval could possibly harm both competition and gamers. Even despite this initial skepticism from the CMA, analysts seem to believe that the CMA will soon approve the merger.
In addition to gaining approval from the CMA, the deal between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard still has to be approved by the US Federal Trade Commission as well as the European Commission.
Kotick himself recently spoke about the hurdles that still need to be overcome with the deal. Here's what Kotick said in a recent CNBC interview.
The host suggested they expected Sony would be in contact with Activision Blizzard, seeking assurances that Call of Duty would still be available for PlayStation.
Kotick replied: "It's funny, Sony is not on the phone to us – in fact, they're not returning our phone calls. One of the things that's surprising to us is that this is the time where ordinarily we would be talking about the future and new opportunities for partnership, and they just haven't been returning our phone call. So I don't know that we're as valuable as maybe they've represented to the regulators that we are."​
Kotick replied: "It's funny, Sony is not on the phone to us – in fact, they're not returning our phone calls. One of the things that's surprising to us is that this is the time where ordinarily we would be talking about the future and new opportunities for partnership, and they just haven't been returning our phone call. So I don't know that we're as valuable as maybe they've represented to the regulators that we are."​
