Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick said his company is not interested in a sale after Electronic Arts went private in a $55 billion deal. The buyer of EA was a group of investors led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF). Zelnick's comments, made in an interview with David Rubenstein, came in response to a question about a possible takeover of Take-Two itself, which owns the Grand Theft Auto franchise.
According to Zelnick, Take-Two can thrive successfully as an independent company. He pointed to the company's strong balance sheet and scale of operations, as well as revenue exceeding $1 billion, which he said makes further consolidation unnecessary. The company forecasts revenue for this fiscal year in the range of $8.0 to $8.2 billion. Take-Two's market capitalization exceeds $42 billion and is expected to grow. Thus, the current forecast and market valuation paint a picture of a company that is not under any pressure forcing it to seek a buyer.
Take-Two's history of interest in mergers is not new. In 2008, EA offered to acquire Take-Two but was rejected. EA later withdrew its bid, as it did not agree to the higher price Take-Two demanded. In 2019, reports in the press suggested a possible takeover by Sony, but no official offer was ever made, and these reports were not confirmed. The combination of past attempts and the current deal with EA shows that the theme of industry consolidation regularly resurfaces, although Take-Two has taken no concrete steps toward a sale.
Zelnick also hinted that new games in the GTA series may be released faster than before. The most anticipated of them, GTA 6, will go on sale on November 19 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Pre-loading has already begun, and the game files take up a large amount of storage, which will matter to many players preparing for the launch. The executive's statements about the pace of game releases tie future launches to the company's overall strategy, which, in his words, relies on its own strength and operational scale rather than on an outside owner.