Analysis of M&A Deal Lifecycle – Microsoft & Activision Blizzard

Business Scenario

You are working as an M&A Analyst at an investment bank. Microsoft planned to acquire Activision Blizzard for approximately $68.7 billion. The deal involved major gaming brands such as Call of Duty, Candy Crush, and World of Warcraft and faced significant regulatory challenges before closing in October 2023.

In this lab, you will first understand the basic stages of an M&A deal and then investigate how Microsoft handled the strategic and regulatory issues surrounding the Activision Blizzard acquisition.

Pre-Lab Preparation

Topic : M&A & Pitch Deck

1) Types of mergers and acquisitions

2) Deal process overview

3) Accretion and dilution basics

4) Role of investment banks in M&A

5) Investment banking pitch deck structure

6) Valuation and transaction slides

Task 1: Analyze Deal Stages

An M&A deal normally moves through four important stages.

Read each stage and understand what an M&A analyst does at that stage.

M&A Stage	What happens?	What does the M&A analyst do?
Pitch & Origination	Find a suitable company to acquire and develop the acquisition idea.	Research companies, study the industry and identify potential targets.
Valuation	Estimate how much the target company is worth.	Analyse financial performance and use valuation methods to estimate value.
Due Diligence	Check the target company carefully before buying it.	Review financial, legal, operational and business information to identify risks.
Closing & Integration	Obtain approvals, complete the transaction and combine the two businesses.	Track regulatory approvals, support the closing process and monitor integration.

Using the Microsoft–Activision Blizzard acquisition, understand what an M&A analyst would consider at each stage.

M&A Stage	What would an M&A analyst look at?	What information would the analyst need?	Why is this stage important?
Pitch & Origination	Microsoft’s strategic fit with Activision Blizzard and its major gaming businesses.	Industry trends, competitors, Activision’s business performance and key gaming franchises.	To decide whether Activision is a suitable acquisition target.
Valuation	Activision’s financial performance and estimated value.	Revenue, profit, cash flow, assets, debt and market data.	To determine a reasonable purchase price for the target.
Due Diligence	Activision’s financial, legal, operational and regulatory risks.	Financial records, contracts, legal matters, business information and regulatory issues.	To identify problems or risks before completing the acquisition.
Closing & Integration	Regulatory approvals and how Microsoft and Activision will work together after the deal.	Regulatory requirements, agreements, integration plans and commitments to competitors.	To complete the acquisition legally and combine the businesses successfully.

Key Learning:
An M&A analyst helps the deal team identify the target, assess its value, check the risks, and support the completion and integration of the deal.

Task 1: Understanding BRD

Before you start building anything, you need to clearly understand what the client actually wants.So, let’s begin by understanding the BRD (Business Requirement Document) shared by the client.

BRD Full Form is Business Requirement Details.BRD like a plan for building a house. This plan helps the builder understand what to build.In the same way,BRD tells developers what the client wants to build

Click to download BRD : BiteBox_BRD.pdf

Activity

After going through BRD list down the Core Features and Web Pages in the tabulated Format as shown Below.

Col 1	Col 2	Col 3
Row 1
Row 2
Row 3

Formula

Profit = Revenue - Cost

Task 2: Create WireFrame

Now that you understand the requirements, don’t jump into coding yet. Before development, we always visualize the layout.

Now lets create a simple wireframe for the homepage.

A wireframe is like a layout plan of a house. Before building, you decide where rooms, doors, and windows will be placed.Similarly, a wireframe helps you plan where elements like headers, images, and buttons will appear on a webpage—before adding design or colours.

Task 3: Code Editor Installation

Good work on completing the planning phase.

Now we will start development. Before that, make sure your system is ready with the required tools.

In this step we will install the VS code editor that will help to Write code efficiently,Organize files , Run and test your application

Go to the visual studio code official website

Click to download Homepage Wireframe : Homepage Wireframe

Link - https://code.visualstudio.com/download

Choose your operating system(windows / Mac) and download the installation file.

Double click on the download app and Accept the agreement and click next

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted

Sub Steps

Double click on the download app and Accept the agreement and click next

public class MathSample {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int x = 10;
        int y = 20;
        int sum = x + y;
        
        System.out.println("The sum is: " + sum);
    }
}

public class MathSample {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int x = 10;
        int y = 20;
        int sum = x + y;
        
        System.out.println("The sum is: " + sum);
    }
}

public class MathSample {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int x = 10;
        int y = 20;
        int sum = x + y;
        
        System.out.println("The sum is: " + sum);
    }
}

Great job!
You have successfully completed your first lab on BiteBox Project Onboarding.

In this lab, you have: Understood the BRD, Created a wireframe, Set up your development environment, Organised your project structure, Run your first program

You are now ready to move to the next stage of development

Checkpoint

Next-Lab Preparation

Git Push

git push origin branchName

Topic : Working with a Text and Listin HTML

1) Power of HTML text tags
2) Customizing your style with CSS
3) Listing it right using HTML
4) HTML Link up , attributes of tag, block vs inline elements

Text box Width : 887
Business Scenario, Pre-lab Preparation, Next-lab Preparation, Task, Activity, Checkpoint : 90%.
Steps : 1,2,3 [Sub Steps - a,b,c]
Normal Text, Topic Name : 80%
Subtopic : 70%
Code Box font Size : 16px

Analysis of M&A Deal Lifecycle – Microsoft & Activision Blizzard

Analysis of M&A Deal Lifecycle – Microsoft & Activision Blizzard

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