Activision Blizzard owner Vivendi has confirmed that it is considering a "variety of options" for selling the game publisher and Call of Duty maker.
Speaking to The Wall Street Journal the French conglomerate's chief financial officer Philippe Capron commented "This is a process going on at board level. The board continues to review a variety of different options, looking at ways to optimise the balance sheet."
The Journal's sources, described as "people familiar with the matter," report that Activision Blizzard management has wanted to buy part of Vivendi's controlling 61 percent stake in the company for some time. The publisher is in a position to do so as it has $4.3 billion in cash on hand.
Vivendi initially expressed interest in selling Activision in June of last year, its shares in the company are estimated to be worth $8.1 billion.
Time Warner, a number of private equity firms, Tencent (which also has a stake in EPIC Games), Disney and Microsoft have all considered purchasing Activision. Of course, if Micrsoft were to buy into the firm it's likely most future Activision titles would be exclusive to its platforms, or at least the console games would likely skip rival systems.
However, no deal has yet been reached with any of the companies involved.
