Gotta hand it to those folks at IGN. They sure know how to knock a hanging piece of traffic bait out of the park! They are getting it from Bloomberg.
Investors seems to believe such a move would help, if today's stock indications are saying anything. But the biggest of the F2P developers borgifying EA?
And what would that mean for SW:TOR?
I also read this on Bloomberg but I don't see this happening. Investors don't believe that such a move would help. A golden rule in finance is that stocks always go up before an actual or prospective acquisition. However, this does not indicate that the merged company would be better off.
Originally posted by EndDream
I had no idea Nexon was large enough to even entertain an EA acquisiton.
They are not that large. Nexon and EA are of similar sizes. However, reverse acquisitions do happen.
I would be extremely surprised if Nexon had enough cash to acquire EA. Although I haven't looked at their balance sheets to check up their liquidity. Maybe shares payment?
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Might be BS. But eventually these questions are going to have to be asked. EA most likely won't finish FY2012 in the red. Yes, they will pull in insane amounts of money through Madden. But they now admit Mass Effect 3 sold below expectations. TOR has the potential to not turn a real profit. (remember, they don't get 100% of box sales, they gotta pay their staff and servers, and they just shelled out a lot more on their marketing blitz, and the loss of revenue over the free month) Dragon Age 2 was basically a loss. The game didn't even last a year before any future DLC was shelved. It is the one time EA wasn't gungho about DLC. battlefield 3, while technically gorgeous, didn't sell what they thought it would. Eventually, EA is going to have to realize their pissing contest with Steam over Origin is going to have to be abandoned.
A company like EA wouldn't ever go bankrupt. But it also can't last in its current form, especially with stocks plunging the way they are.
Those are sort of famous last words. EA hasn't turned a profit in, what, four or five years now? I know the total losses (I added them up) were $2.77 billion since the last (small) profit all those years ago. Just last quarter alone, the loss was $205 million and it was $324 million for the first nine months of the fiscal year. And a significant amount of that was because they did a few one-shot accounting tricks to pad the bottom-line. Tricks that will, eventually, reverse and hit the bottom-line. So it's not exactly fun-and-games at EA.
Now, they're not dead yet. Their balance sheet is pretty clean. They have good cash reserves. They have a tremendous library of intellectual properties. So, yes, right now they're not in bankruptcy danger. Not in the slightest. In fact it's very clear they are years and years and years away from a potential bankruptcy.
But once upon time so was GM. And while I don't expect it... When I was 15, I'd have never thought that GM would go bankrupt either.... They owned the auto industry and the Japanese were bit players. And things changed.
Also, I think you meant 'won't finish in the black.' Black is good. Red is bad. They've already lost a ton of money through the first three quarters. I would find it unlikely they turned around that fast in their, historically speaking, worst quarter of the year.
Well, EA is definitely heading towards either a buyout or Ch. 11.
No way. The biggest 'liability' they have on their balance sheet is deferred revenue from digital pre-orders. It's 1.4 billion. But that's only a liability in the sense you need a credit to offset the debit of receiving that $1.4 billion in cash and since the games aren't shipped, they have to account for it somewhere. It'll reverse out when the games are shipped with a simple journal entry.
Other than that, there balance is very clean. $112 million in AP. Some other short term liabilities. Their long-term liabilities are very low for a company of their size. Yet they have $2.8 billion in current assets (including $1.2 billion in cash).
I hate EA with a passion. But their balance sheet is great for a Company that hasn't made a profit in four or five years. They've burned through a lot of equity with all those losses, but they're in no real danger. Not in next five years. And even then, they can start selling divisions or IPs.
But a potential bankruptcy is something too far off in the horizon to discuss with a straight face.
We're talking about EA. They allegedly paid 'protesters' to gain hype for dante's inferno. Who's to say that EA didn't talk to Nexon and decided to spread a cheap rumor to burst quick stock. It's deviously genious.
We're talking about EA. They allegedly paid 'protesters' to gain hype for dante's inferno. Who's to say that EA didn't talk to Nexon and decided to spread a cheap rumor to burst quick stock. It's deviously genious.
Where your wrong is you put EA and genious in the same paragraph. You did good with deviously though.
And in related news... EA's stock price is right back down to where it was before this BS rumor, and still trending lower.
It is about $.50 over its 52 week low (which was shortly before the false buyout rumor) and expect new lows to be tested following the upcoming financial announcements...
The stock price is down more than 25% since the release of TOR.
The market does not care much about PR spin, website hype, or fanboi/hater postings: it cares if a company is being run well and is making money.
With the significant declines in EAs value these last several months, it is clear what the market thinks of EA's efforts.
Comments
I also read this on Bloomberg but I don't see this happening. Investors don't believe that such a move would help. A golden rule in finance is that stocks always go up before an actual or prospective acquisition. However, this does not indicate that the merged company would be better off.
They are not that large. Nexon and EA are of similar sizes. However, reverse acquisitions do happen.
I would be extremely surprised if Nexon had enough cash to acquire EA. Although I haven't looked at their balance sheets to check up their liquidity. Maybe shares payment?
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Those are sort of famous last words. EA hasn't turned a profit in, what, four or five years now? I know the total losses (I added them up) were $2.77 billion since the last (small) profit all those years ago. Just last quarter alone, the loss was $205 million and it was $324 million for the first nine months of the fiscal year. And a significant amount of that was because they did a few one-shot accounting tricks to pad the bottom-line. Tricks that will, eventually, reverse and hit the bottom-line. So it's not exactly fun-and-games at EA.
Now, they're not dead yet. Their balance sheet is pretty clean. They have good cash reserves. They have a tremendous library of intellectual properties. So, yes, right now they're not in bankruptcy danger. Not in the slightest. In fact it's very clear they are years and years and years away from a potential bankruptcy.
But once upon time so was GM. And while I don't expect it... When I was 15, I'd have never thought that GM would go bankrupt either.... They owned the auto industry and the Japanese were bit players. And things changed.
Also, I think you meant 'won't finish in the black.' Black is good. Red is bad. They've already lost a ton of money through the first three quarters. I would find it unlikely they turned around that fast in their, historically speaking, worst quarter of the year.
No way. The biggest 'liability' they have on their balance sheet is deferred revenue from digital pre-orders. It's 1.4 billion. But that's only a liability in the sense you need a credit to offset the debit of receiving that $1.4 billion in cash and since the games aren't shipped, they have to account for it somewhere. It'll reverse out when the games are shipped with a simple journal entry.
Other than that, there balance is very clean. $112 million in AP. Some other short term liabilities. Their long-term liabilities are very low for a company of their size. Yet they have $2.8 billion in current assets (including $1.2 billion in cash).
I hate EA with a passion. But their balance sheet is great for a Company that hasn't made a profit in four or five years. They've burned through a lot of equity with all those losses, but they're in no real danger. Not in next five years. And even then, they can start selling divisions or IPs.
But a potential bankruptcy is something too far off in the horizon to discuss with a straight face.
We're talking about EA. They allegedly paid 'protesters' to gain hype for dante's inferno. Who's to say that EA didn't talk to Nexon and decided to spread a cheap rumor to burst quick stock. It's deviously genious.
Played - M59, EQOA, EQ, EQ2, PS, SWG[Favorite], DAoC, UO, RS, MXO, CoH/CoV, TR, FFXI, FoM, WoW, Eve, Rift, SWTOR, TSW.
Playing - PS2, AoW, GW2
Where your wrong is you put EA and genious in the same paragraph. You did good with deviously though.
And in related news... EA's stock price is right back down to where it was before this BS rumor, and still trending lower.
It is about $.50 over its 52 week low (which was shortly before the false buyout rumor) and expect new lows to be tested following the upcoming financial announcements...
The stock price is down more than 25% since the release of TOR.
The market does not care much about PR spin, website hype, or fanboi/hater postings: it cares if a company is being run well and is making money.
With the significant declines in EAs value these last several months, it is clear what the market thinks of EA's efforts.