On Sunday afternoon, following the news of the Vivendi-Activision merger, we spoke with several of the key players in the $18.9 billion venture. On the phone with us were Vivendi CEO Jean-Bernard Levy, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime, Vivendi Games chairman René Penisson, and Activision CFO Thomas Tippl. We asked them to tell us when the talks began, why they thought this would be a good fit, and why governance goes to Vivendi and operational control to Activision. Here's what they had to say:
René Pennison: Hello, N'Gai
Bonjour, Jean-Bernard. Ca va bien? [Hello, Jean-Bernard. Are things going well?]
Jean-Bernard Levy: Looks like French is…[Drowned out by everyone's laughter.]
If only I spoke it well enough to conduct the interview in French. It's a bit rusty, but with ten years of learning French in Canada, it's not bad.
Levy: Where are you from?
I'm from Vancouver.
Levy: Oh, really. That's a big French-speaking community?
Pas vraiment, mais comme j'ai dit, j'ai étudié le francais en école pendant dix années…[Not really, but like I said, I studied French for ten years in school…]
Ah, formidable.
Merci beaucoup. The first question is, when and how did the talks begin between Vivendi and Activision?
Bobby Kotick: So I would say about a year ago, I got together with Bruce Hack who is the CEO of Vivendi Games to see if there was anything we might do together. About a month later, Jean-Bernard and Rene came to Santa Monica and we had a talk. Mike [Morhaime] and the Blizzard guys, as you can imagine, I've known for about 15 years or so. We started talking in January, and it was apparent pretty quickly that we had a great chemistry; that this business combination made a lot of sense and it really then became the mechanics, how you manage the opportunity. But it started earlier in the year.
You said "chemistry." What were the areas of commonality? What made you think that this would be a good cultural fit?
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