According to a Reuters’ report here the computer games publisher Take-Two has instituted a severance plan for employees (both executive and non-executive level), which would be activated in the event of them being fired following any purchase of the company. Obviously Take-Two are a caring company with their employees best interests at heart and the fact that this “poison pill” would make the company more expensive to purchase is just a convenient bonus. The plan would give all non-executive employees the equivalent of six months salary as severance… with the executive staff getting up to 1.5 times salary and bonuses for 18 months and all at zero cost to Take-Two.
The plan is part of Take-Two’s attempt to avoid being gobbled up by the ever hungry Electronic Arts (EA) following the latter’s February 25th announcement of a $2 Billion bid for the Grand Theft Auto publisher. Further steps include an attempt to bolster share-holder confidence (and push up the share price) by publicising the companies successes, with an announcement of historical sales to date for a host of Take-Two’s top titles (see gi.biz story).
Of course no corporate take over these days would be complete without a few stockholders suing someone or other. Regardless of how the takeover plays out someone somewhere is bound to think they haven’t earned as much as they should from their shares and sue someone…. anyone… in an attempt to get more. This is more fun than any soap currently showing on TV so we can only hope it will make it to a second season.
