👉 Background: Microsoft is the tech behemoth that gave the world Microsoft Word, Excel, and the OG assistant, Clippy. Over the past decade, Microsoft has been in its acquisition era—in fact, since 2014, it has made 326 deals worth around $170 billion USD.

👉 What happened: In January 2022, Microsoft announced the $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the creator of video games like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and owner of Candy Crush. But, the regulators needed to run their eyes over the deal.

👉 What else: And now after nearly 2 years, the deal has finally received approval from 16 different governments. The only awkward thing is that Microsoft has kinda moved on to greener pastures.

What's the key learning?

💡In business, priorities are always shifting. The longer a deal drags, the less important the deal tends to become.

💡Back in January 2022, console gaming was a top priority for Microsoft. But right now, it's all about cloud gaming (ie games through phones and TV's), as well as its focus on AI.

💡But this deal is actually against the tide. Many other deals that require regulatory scrutiny have actually fallen through too.

• In September 2020, Nvidia announced a $40 billion deal to acquire Arm. Nvidia eventually pulled out of the deal in February 2022, after it struggled to convince regulators.
• In March 2023, Brookfield and EIG Consortium announced the acquisition of Origin Energy for $18.7 billion. The regulators wanted to review this deal and now Origin's shareholders have gone cold.

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