Sources with Bloomberg have revealed that Tencent is working to secure a massive $6 billion loan to acquire what TMT Finance (via Seeking Alpha) suggests is a major gaming company. While TMT failed to confirm what this mysterious party might be, the amount of money involved and previous insider speculation has led some to believe that Tencent is interested in acquiring Rockstar Games and 2K Games’ parent company and publisher, Take-Two Interactive.
“Tencent is considering raising several billion dollars in a ‘club’ loan deal and is holding talks with lending banks as the company looks at a potential acquisition of a gaming business,” Seeking Alpha wrote. “Tencent hasn’t identified the gaming company it’s targeting, though its expected to be U.S. or South Korean, TMT reported, citing a source familiar.”
Lending credence to the possibility of a Take-Two buyout is popular GTA Forums insider Razed-, who confirmed that there is some level of truth regarding the acquisition rumors. Despite the possibility of Tencent planning what would likely be a hostile takeover, s/he has told GTA fans not to worry about it.
“I do not know the specifics but I can confirm that the recent rumors regarding acquisition have some truth to them,” Razed- wrote in a post echoed by r/GamingLeaksAndRumours. “There has been some chatter within a very small circle of the community over the last three months regarding this stuff. I’m really interested to see if this will go somewhere…. but I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. Rockstar will continue making great games no matter what.”
Games industry analyst Daniel Ahmad also noted that the money that Tencent is raising has nothing to do with its recent acquisition of Don’t Starve developer Klein Entertainment, which we reported on yesterday. Other insiders have theorized that Take-Two could escape a potential takeover by cozying up with Sony instead.
Just to note. This isn’t related to the money Tencent was confirmed to be raising yesterday.
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) January 22, 2021
who knows, anythin can happen
— Jez (@JezCorden) January 22, 2021