Saudi Arabia approves Microsoft’s $68.7B Activision Blizzard acquisition

Saudi Arabia’s competition authority announced on Monday that they’ve approved Microsoft’s proposed $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

‘’The General Authority for Competition issued a No Objection Certificate with respect to the completion of the economic concentration transaction between Microsoft Corporation Activision Blizzard, Inc.,’’ the regulator said in a tweet. 

While Saudi Arabia has become the first country to approve Microsoft’s largest deal so far, the tech giant still needs approval from many other countries before it can complete the acquisition successfully. 

Weeks after Microsoft announced the deal in January, sources told Bloomberg that the US Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation to decide whether it’s against competition. The UK Competition and Markets Authority also launched an antitrust probe into the proposed acquisition in early July. Both the FTC and CMA are expected to announce their decisions in the coming weeks.

If a country rejects an acquisition offer, the company might lose its ability to maintain its operations in that area. Although this generally doesn’t pose a threat to completion of acquisitions, the companies may withdraw offers if they get rejected by multiple countries.