14 DAY TRIAL // Activision has recently announced that Modern Warfare 2 managed to bring in 550 million dollars for the company in just five days, becoming the biggest entertainment release in history, beating not just Grand Theft Auto IV but also The Dark Knight. And Booby Kotick, the Chief Executive Officer of Activision, has taken advantage of the increase in share price for his company and sold about 1.7 million shares that he owned, netting an estimated 17 million dollars in one transaction.
Last week, Kotick took advantage of another stock price increase and sold another batch of shares that he owned for the price of 20 million dollars. The price he received was somewhere between 11.61 and 11.72 per unit. In August, another sale, at a higher price, resulted in 25 million dollars.
With the company seemingly being the only big publisher that is not having a tough time because of the economic crisis, it appears investors are eager to get a share, while its Chief Executive Officer is interested in receiving hard cash for the shares he has been awarded with for his performance at the helm of the company.
But something murkier could be lurking under the facade of good company governance. The release of Modern Warfare 2 is huge and will help Activision make a profit in 2009 but its other huge franchise, Guitar Hero, which has recently received the DJ Hero spinoff, is not doing very well.
Blizzard can always count on World of Warcraft providing a steady revenue stream but some are wondering whether Activision can continue to thrive if it relies on early iterations of its biggest series while investing little in the creation of new intellectual properties. Maybe Kotick is selling his shares now because he knows that the current price per share will not be reached for quite some time from now.