Electronic Arts Enters Agreement with Take Two

Electronic Arts says that it is entering a confidentiality agreement with Take Two today, which is aimed at prohibiting the two companies from revealing any detail regarding the face to face talks that are due to take place in the near future.

Take Two is set to present Electronic Arts with guidance information regarding projects and expected financial results for the next three years. The data is supposed to let EA make an analysis regarding the opportunity of taking over the publisher.

One of the final obstacles for a deal between the two sides has recently been cleared when the Federal Trade Commission, which is tasked with seeing that no monopolies form, gave the green light to the potential merger, after having investigated the case for a few months. A lot of videogame industry analysts have been speculating lately that a deal is likely if Electronic Arts is ready to add a few dollars to the price per share that it is offering. The offer currently stands at 25.74 dollars per share and is considered inadequate by Strauss Zelnick, chairman of the board at Take Two.

Electronic Arts has released a rather cryptic statement regarding the recent agreement, saying that "As previously disclosed, EA now requires due diligence to support any proposal to acquire Take-Two and there can be no assurance that any proposal, negotiations or transaction will result".

The above sentence can be taken to mean almost anything, from Electronic Arts and Take Two moving closer to talks that will eventually result in a take over to signaling that Electronic Arts is, after this final effort, ready to give up its plans of owning Take Two and that juicy, multi million dollar Grand Theft Auto franchise.

We'll see how the situation evolves and we'll let you know what happens once the two sides meet face to face.