Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick\u2019s \u2018friends\u2019 accused of $60m insider trading Wikimedia Commons\/Steven SimkoThree men considered to be friends of Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick are under investigation for insider trading in regards to the purchase of the company by Microsoft. Microsoft\u2019s acquisition of Activision Blizzard sent shockwaves throughout the game industry, giving the Xbox platform a plethora of new exclusive IPs such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft to help build its brand. The purchase was also quite lucrative for those with Activision stock, so much so that there is a new controversy that once again involves embattled CEO Bobby Kotick. Film exec David Geffen, Fox co-founder Barry Diller, and Alexander von Furstenberg bought $108 million worth of shares just days before the Microsoft purchase to the tune of $60 million in profit \u2013 something that is being investigated. Friends of Bobby Kotick investigated for alleged insider trading According to the Wall Street Journal, Kotick is a \u201clong time friend\u201d of Barry Diller while Geffen is friends with Diller who in turn is married to fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg \u2013 whose son is Alexander. These ties have earned the attention of the US Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission who are \u201clooking into whether any of the options trades violated insider-trading law.\u201d However, Diller has denied the allegations, calling the $60m profit a \u201ccoincidence\u201d and a \u201clucky bet.\u201d Additionally, he said that the trio \u201cacted on no information of any kind from anyone.\u201d This was echoed by von Furstenberg who noted he bought shares in the company in the past and acted under the impression that \u201cActivision at some point would either go private, or would be acquired at some point.\u201d We\u2019ll have to see how this investigation unholds, but given the amount of money, it may be a while before we learn if the men are guilty of insider trading or just incredibly lucky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick\u2019s \u2018friends\u2019 accused of $60m insider trading Wikimedia Commons\/Steven SimkoThree men considered to be friends of Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick are under investigation for insider trading in regards to the purchase of the company by Microsoft. Microsoft\u2019s acquisition of Activision Blizzard sent shockwaves throughout the game industry, giving the Xbox […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21770\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}