EA will finally acquire DICE

EA became the biggest shareholder of DICE in 2003, when they had 18,9% (1 911 403 B stocks) of the company. November 15th, 2004, EA Holding, made a offer to the outstanding stock holders, to acquire the rest of the A stocks for 61,00 SEK per stock (around 7.97$).

After that EA had acquired 67,9% of the stocks for DICE and have warrent for a further 2 327 602 A stocks. That would mean EA would own 73,0% of DICE through stock shares, a status quo that on sight may have negative impact on DICE.

Because of this, EA offered DICE to merge with EA Holding and give them right to their development tools, technology and financial resources. After considering the options DICE has, their entire board have agreed on the offer and it will help them with their transition to game consoles and next-gen platforms.

This is required by DICE in rate with the increasing cost for developing a game and the increasingly severe competition on the market. EA Holding will acquire all DICE resources and debts, during the merge that will be held in September this year.

For more information, read here (Swedish)
EA to complete DICE takeover

Personal comments: First of all, I'm sorry for the crude translation from DICE press release, and my lacking knowledge about the stock market. Secondly, I would like to point out that EA have been trying to takeover DICE since 2003, if not even earlier than that, and DICE has repeatedly declined their offers.

The current situation looks almost like a extortion of the company, forcing DICE to hand themself over to EA. And thirdly, I would like to say it's frightening that no matter what, a opposition who is wealthy enough, can acquire anything they want.

And of course, I could be completely wrong about all this, and my translation above may have hundreds of errors in it... but hopefully I've reported the current situation good enough.