Microsoft-Activision agreement: the United States probes the trade in options obtained during the acquisition

U.S. federal prosecutors and securities regulators are investigating large bets Barry Diller, Alexander von Furstenberg and David Geffen made on Activision Blizzard stock in January, days before the video game maker agreed to… to be acquired by Microsoft, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

IAC chairman Diller, his son-in-law von Furstenberg and music mogul Geffen have an unrealized profit of around $60 million (about Rs 459.58 crore) on options trading, on the basis of Activision’s recent share price of around $80 (about Rs 6,100), according to the report, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Justice Department is investigating whether any of the options trades violated insider trading laws, the report said, adding that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is separately conducting a civil investigation into insider trading. insiders.

Spokespersons for the Justice Department and the SEC did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment. IAC did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters, while von Furstenberg and Geffen could not be immediately reached.

Diller confirmed that the three had been contacted by regulators, but added that none of them had nonpublic material information about the Microsoft-Activision deal, the WSJ reported.

“It was just a lucky bet,” Diller told the Journal. “We didn’t act on any information of any kind from anyone. This is one of those coincidences.”

In January, Microsoft announced its intention to buy Activision, the maker of “Call of Duty”, for $68.7 billion (about Rs 526,224.14 crore) in the industry’s biggest deal story game.

© Thomson Reuters 2022