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Varchild2008 (84.34)

Mini Shareholder Revolt against Bobby Kotick (ATVI)

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December 08, 2009 – Comments (8) | RELATED TICKERS: ATVI

Yes.... I am officially calling for a grievance of some kind....

My issue is that ATVI trading in a range between disasterous to $13.00.... and when was the last time we saw $13.00 anyhow????  Not even Call of Duty brought the price to $13.00....

Am I just whining??? Maybe...but here me out.. Why not DITCH the stupid... does nothing for investors... Share Buyback program and instead introduce a small Dividend?

Give investors something to look forward to during these periods of SIDEWAYS trading...

Granted... Bobby Kotick's management of ATVI is not why we should revolt... It has been excellent.

I am just not interested in a Stock Buyback Program that hasn't moved the price up  1 cent it seems.... $10.74 today???  I mean come on.... That's basically the average share price of the share buyback program.  That means the buyback program was buying shares at a price that is the SAME price WE ARE SITTING AT....

What is the point here of these lame buy backs???   They accomplish nothing...

One thing great about dividends is "Dividend Reinvestment" and the 1 day short term pricing boosts that happen each quarter from investors buying more shares of stock off their dividend payments.

What better way to price up a stock than to let VARCHILD2008  and all the other investors of ATVI doing the bidding?????  ok?????  BOBBY KOTICK..... In an era where you are DUMPING millions of Shares of Options you bought ......    Why not allow us to scoop them up? 

Give us some dividend cashola while we sit and wait or DIABLO 2 and Starcraft 2 to release cause the way the unemployment rate is headed.... we may end up being your only customers anyhow and we might need the cash in order to buy your video games.

8 Comments – Post Your Own

#1) On December 09, 2009 at 1:01 AM, LostHawg (< 20) wrote:

is it time to sell this stock??  I just started investing 2 months ago, following stock advisor picks.  I had ERTS, ATVI, and GME.  I have already dumped ERTS, but ATVI and GME  are killing me?

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#2) On December 09, 2009 at 1:13 AM, DarkReaper (41.04) wrote:

If activsion is under $11 bucks I call that a great buy. Activsion at $10 bucks is like Yahoo at $10 bucks, Ebay at $10 bucks, News Corp at $10 bucks, stocks that are way too cheap at $10. 

I agree with the Revolt, great company, crappy CEO.

The objective of a CEO is to increase profits and shareholder value.

If hes going to sell so many shares, do it in stages, instead of just dumping it , then bragging about how he made 20 million dollars. He basically is preventing the growth of this company.

I will continue to buy shares of this company under $11 bucks, hopefully a hedge fund will buy enough shares and vote to remove Bobby as CEO.

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#3) On December 09, 2009 at 10:56 AM, yongg1028 (85.23) wrote:

Posting a dividend would effectively signal that management has run out of promising new growth ideas, which would inevitably affect the share price.

 ATVI needs to focus 100% on the gamers and on making games.  Then, and only then, can we shareholders make any money by simply holding a piece of paper that signifies ownership of the stock.

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#4) On December 09, 2009 at 11:36 AM, Varchild2008 (84.34) wrote:

Heh.. well genemd.. that's ONE way to look at the dividend...

But.... DPS announced a dividend just before landing a major lucractive deal with PEPSI... a few weeks afterwards...

So... Many company's introducing dividends have done things to increase their growth....post dividend....

I don't think the dividend by itself signals anything.....  I think the past history of the stock and management performance is much more meaningful for investors...

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#5) On December 09, 2009 at 1:44 PM, DarkToast (91.34) wrote:

Bobby Kotick is a douche. Easily the worst CEO of major game companies. He brags and is proud of the fact the he doesn't play any of the games his company produces. A CEO that revels in his ignorance of his own product? Yep.

He has alienated a large portion of his PC gaming customers, and given Activision/Blizzard the crown of 'Most Evil Game Company' that EA wore for so long.

It is a shame that Blizzard, one of the best game companies ever, merged with Activision to be run by this evil scumwad.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwMa29Iu8k8

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#6) On December 09, 2009 at 3:31 PM, mostofall (59.96) wrote:

I think that the stock suffers due to the gaming industry as a whole. Every bad report for another company seems to include ATVI in the footnotes, when it is clear (to me at least) that ATVI trumps the field, and should not be considered in the same breath as the losers.

That being said, I am rapidly losing faith for the same reasons as Varchild. It's hard to keep holding something you personally believe in, while the Board is selling it off every month.......Lead by example right?

I am very torn right now that Apple is back under 200, a chance for me. But do I dump ATVI because of its CEO, who I agree is trying to line his own pockets, or wait for this thing to turn around.

The parent company, Vivendi, just came into a "little bit" of cash. ATVI has quite a bit as well. Whose to say they don't run out and try to acquire EA or TakeTwo? I could just be dreaming, but with a greedy CEO, it could be.....well you see my dilemma.

I want to thank Varchild for getting this ball rolling. I have not been investing for very long, and have limited capital. I most definitely got into ATVI before doing proper research (because I have been gaming since Activision first came up with Pitfall Harry). I have been looking for some answers for a couple of months now. This has helped me immensely.

We need to send "Cousin Eddie" over to Kotick's house and bring him back to the Shareholders Xmas party....... 

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#7) On December 10, 2009 at 1:31 AM, usefulaz (95.57) wrote:

Are you seriously bitching that what you think is a company isn't reaching the price you think its worth?

If Kotick is scaring people to sell their shares then buy more shares if you believe the company is cheap.

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#8) On December 11, 2009 at 6:54 PM, OrangeCrema (51.11) wrote:

Sounds like there are a lot of new investors to ATVI in this thread.  As an investor of currently 12,000 shares, let me comment on its current state. 

First of all, Activision and Blizzard do not share the same strategy.  Activision does its thing with sequel games mostly (Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk) and Blizzard does its thing with Starcraft, WoW, and Diablo.  A little bit of history:  a large chunk of Blizzard has been owned by Vivendi well before the merger.  When they merged, Vivendi aquired a large stake in ATVI.  So, in effect, Blizzard retained its solidarity to pretty much make its own decisions.  This is good, because Blizzard usually makes really great products on their own. 

 Activision's best sequel lineup is Call of Duty.  This game is raking in money for the company, and will continue to do so once the upgrade map packs and iphone games are factored in.  Blizzard on the other hand, takes often more than 5 years to perfect a game and get it in the market.  With the promised 2010 launch of Starcraft 2, the update to WoW, and Diablo 2 sometime after 2010, Blizzard has a stacked lineup in the near future.  This company is going to have amazing 2010 earnings.  Quite possibly staggering earnings.  

 I agree with the above posters that often a Dividend helps, but I would much rather Activision spend its money on creating a couple of new games than spend it on a dividend.  

Tony Hawk Ride is failing...bad.  DJ Hero has a great soundtrack, but will probably dissapoint as well.  And the company will be fine without them.  

If Starcraft 2 launches before June 30th, I think $15/share will easily be reached in 12 months from today.  I'm betting on closer to $18 actually, but the time that it takes to get there will rely on the Starcraft release date.  

Finally, since I place such importance on these games for ATVI's earnings, ATVI needs to have 2-3 promising games in the pipeline (and publicly announced) by late next summer, otherwise I'm selling on the Blizzard launch wave.  Also, since Starcraft 2 will be released in 3 parts, the smart thing to for ATVI to do would be to give a launch date for the second part on the launch day of the first part.  Here's to hoping.  Buyer at $11, steal at $10.  

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