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Square Enix makes $200M Tecmo bid

By Tor Thorsen, GameSpotPosted Aug 29, 2008 11:25 am PT

Final Fantasy XIII publisher makes "friendly" 22.3 billion-yen offer for troubled Ninja Gaiden-maker; deadline Sept. 4.

Less than 24 hours after it made headlines for selling over 1 million copies of Ninja Gaiden II, Tecmo is making news again. This morning, role-playing game giant Square Enix (Final Fantasy XIII) announced it was making an unsolicited but nonhostile bid for the Dead or Alive 4 publisher.

In a statement, Square Enix president Yoichi Wada presented the offer as an attempt to rescue Tecmo. In the span of two months, the publisher has been rocked by a declining stock price, class-action lawsuits, and the departure of and legal action by star designer Tomonobu Itagaki. Just last week, Tecmo president Yoshimi Yasuda abruptly stepped down, citing personal reasons.

"Tecmo is a group of excellent creators with a proven track record in the global market, which is a precious human resource of Japan," explained Wada. "We, however, cannot be optimistic about the future of this significant resource, given the current circumstances surrounding Tecmo. We believe that Tecmo will be able to make a great leap forward by joining Square Enix Group, which will provide the group with further growth opportunities as well."

Though Tecmo has not yet publicly commented on Square Enix's offer, it is likely tempting to many shareholders. The ¥920 ($8.46) per share offer is a 30 percent premium on Tecmo's ¥706 ($6.49) closing price on Thursday. The Bloomberg news service values the entire bid at 22.3 billion yen ($205 million). As a result of the offer, Tecmo stock shot up 14 percent to close ¥806 ($7.41) per share today, with Square Enix's stock rising 2.6 percent to ¥3,610 ($33.20).

While generous, Square-Enix's self-described "friendly takeover bid" (TOB) is very time-sensitive, expiring on September 4--next Thursday. Wada's statement ended with "If [Square Enix] should, by the deadline, receive no response from Tecmo, or fail to obtain consent by the board of directors of Tecmo to the TOB, the company will withdraw the proposal, and will NOT acquire the Tecmo shares through the TOB as planned in the proposal." (Emphasis in the original.)

328 Comments

  • Rinoa_Bunansa

    Posted Apr 19, 2009 12:53 pm PT

    I am a die hard Square-Soft fan. And ever since Enix merged with Square-Soft, I've lost interest in what they have to do with Final Fantasy anymore. They've completely ruined the Final Fantasy Vll series that Square-Soft made. I heard that Enix recently bought EIDOS. All I thought was- there goes Tomb Raider and Soul Reaver! Before you know it, Enix will try to touch up on past events that are completely irrelevant to the actual story in Tomb Raider and Soul Reaver, and all of the other EIDOS' games. Before you know it, Enix will try to buy CAPCOM and run their games into the ground too. Watch, ENIX will try to touch up on Monster Rancher's past characters lives that are completely irrelevant to the actual story.

  • NicaSon

    Posted Feb 7, 2009 1:52 am PT

    Square Enix has simply lost touch with their fanbase. I understand that investors make the business world go round, but who buys the games? GAMERS. And what happens when a company makes a bad game? Surprise! Gamers won't buy them. And as everyone and their grandmother has mentioned, its a harsh economic climate right now, and gamers aren't as stupid as we once were throwing our money away at anything that had Sony, Capcom, SquareSoft, Konami or EA on the box. Its not Microsoft's fault and its not Sony's fault. SE has no one to blame for their idiocy but themselves. And no, FFXIII is not the answer to their financial issues. All FFXIII is going to be is another version of FF whatever number, only with prettier graphics. SE is stuck in the past while western developers (and some eastern) have evolved in the video game business. Running to Microsoft's system doesn't make you hip and cool with the western audience because western gamers want Fallout 3 and Mass Effect and Bioshock. End rant.

  • Ton77

    Posted Sep 3, 2008 12:56 pm PT

    im mad at you SE you rushed Infinite Undiscovery. Oh well The Last Remnant and Star Ocean are on its way

  • staley6565

    Posted Sep 3, 2008 12:17 pm PT

    If they just made DOA5, but actually revamped the game for the first time since 2000, I'd be happy. Give the game a story that would make each character worth beating it with and I think it'd be a definite buy.

  • MetalGuyver

    Posted Sep 3, 2008 10:02 am PT

    Come on Tecmo, Work with Square and make those awesome Monster Rancher and Deception Games again!

  • Elann2008

    Posted Sep 2, 2008 10:54 pm PT

    Tecmo is trash. I wouldnt bid on it. Keep your 200 mil and walk. Ninja Gaiden has never been the same since the NES days, and only the true old-school gamers can attest to that. Ninja Gaiden Sigma and NG2 are junk. I only reason why I would agree to this bid would be to grab their employees and have them work on Square projects and wash out the name Tecmo, altogether. Good riddens.

  • halosniper52

    Posted Sep 2, 2008 9:49 pm PT

    Take it.

  • Timstuff

    Posted Sep 2, 2008 8:24 pm PT

    "residentzombie2

    Posted Sep 2, 2008 2:22 pm PT

    Plus a Final Fantasy vs DOA fighting game would be awesome"

    Oh my goodness I never even considered that. With Star Wars characters in Soul Calibur 4, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, and of course the warm fuzzy feelings we all have about Marvel vs. Capcom. I'm sure that if Square buys Tecmo, we'll at least see Tifa in DOA5 as a guest character.

  • 1uP_OnYou

    Posted Sep 2, 2008 3:34 pm PT

    Well I hope Tecmo excepts the offer that Square-Enix has laid out for them. I feel like Im dreaming I never expect something like this to possibly happen.

  • jeremiah06

    Posted Sep 2, 2008 1:36 pm PT

    @thepyrethatburn:

    Your wrong, Sony bailed Square out then and FFX was a Square soft product the first final fantasy with square-enix was FFX-2 and that merger was 40-60 with square getting the 40 but in exchange getting to keep all their bigwigs in charge after the merger.

  • Thanatos2

    Posted Sep 2, 2008 1:10 pm PT

    Well, hopefully, Square can bring in their legendary need to release polished games. as good as NG 2 was, the camera was awful and the graphics were a little dated, something Square would force Team Ninja to fix if they wanted to release something in conjunction with the Square Eneix brand name

  • residentzombie2

    Posted Sep 2, 2008 11:22 am PT

    Plus a Final Fantasy vs DOA fighting game would be awesome

  • residentzombie2

    Posted Sep 2, 2008 11:21 am PT

    If SE can get Tecmo, we may see Tomonobu Itagaki work as a SE game designer and get back to making HIS Ninja Gaiden and DOA games again. We can only hope.

  • hannify

    Posted Sep 2, 2008 10:55 am PT

    o0 didnt expect that

  • Dixteel

    Posted Sep 2, 2008 10:44 am PT

    I think the intention might be very obvious---
    Remake of FF7: Ninja Gaiden Action + Cloud and his gigantic sword + FF7 RPG and Drama ==> Final Fantasy 7 Gaiden...on Wii!?!

  • mrkame16

    Posted Sep 2, 2008 9:05 am PT

    Imagine....Ninja Gaiden RPG? or a fighting game like DOA staring Final fantasy Characters.

  • Hvac0120

    Posted Sep 2, 2008 8:47 am PT

    I think the reason for this merger is to expand the SquareEnix library of games past the RPG genre. Tecmo has not really done all that great over the past few years, but still has some good IP's to work with. This is one merger that I support in hopes the SE will ultimately make all the Tecmo games 100% better.

  • vss3rd

    Posted Sep 2, 2008 6:42 am PT

    lets try to think of it THIS way..just imagine..

    ninja gaiden with all its button mashing comborific high action..plus--real--character developement.the best of both worlds:
    --mindnumbing action for the twitch
    --gainful character building for those with slower hands

  • dre2k14

    Posted Sep 2, 2008 12:51 am PT

    id be so f uckin pissed if they made ninja gaiden and doa a rpg and thats all se is all about .....sure final fantasy is cool to people that like rpg`s but ive been playin ninja gaiden for years and if they change it to a rpg there gonna lose alot of loyal fans to the series

  • siLVURcross

    Posted Sep 1, 2008 10:49 pm PT

    Whatever SE plans to do, it better not be another FF7 spin off, I'm so sick of em'

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