Take-Two Buys Back Icahn Group Stake - Update

(RTTNews) - Video-game publisher Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. (TTWO) Tuesday said it has bought all of the Icahn Group's stake in the company at $16.93 a share. The transaction also entailed the resignation of Icahn Group designees from the Take-Two board.

New York-based Take-Two said it purchased from activist investor Carl Icahn's Group, 12.02 million shares at Monday's closing price of 16.93 apiece, amounting to about $203.6 million. The company plans to fund the buyback from its cash on hand.

Following completion of the purchase, Take-Two's shares outstanding will be around 81 million.

New York-based Take-Two, known for its superhit Grand Theft Auto series and the Midnight Club racing series, said it had agreed with the Icahn Group years ago that if the latter sold its position, then the Group backed board members would resign from the board. As such, Brett Icahn, Jim Nelson, and SungHwan Cho resigned, leaving the board with five members.

Take-Two said the repurchase was made outside of the company's existing share repurchase program, pursuant to which 7.5 million shares are authorized to be repurchased. The company has repurchased 4.2 million shares in the open market at an average price of $17.38 per share pursuant to this authorization to date.

TTWO stock is trading at $16.23, down $0.70 or 4.13%, on a volume of about 3 million shares on the Nasdaq.