An investment group that counts current Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick as among its members is in talks to acquire the troubled social networking web site MySpace. Reuters reports via unnamed sources that Kotick was approached by the members of the unnamed investment group a number of weeks ago to join their effort to purchase a controlling stake in MySpace which is currently owned by News Corporation.

Kotick has reportedly not committed himself yet to join the group, according to the story. Even if he does his ownership stake in MySpace will be small. It would also be a personal investment for Kotick and not a part of his Activision Blizzard dealings. The story also reports that if the deal goes through News Corporation would still own a stake in MySpace of about 20 percent.

MySpace was of course the web site that helped to launch the massive social networking trend in the past decade. News Corporation bought MySpace at the height of its popularity for $580 million back in 2005. Since then the site has lost much of its popularity thanks in large part to the success of its biggest rival Facebook. There have been a number of layoffs at MySpace over the past couple of years. The story claims that News Corporation was hoping to sell off MySpace for about $100 million but its unlikely that News Corp will actually get that amount for the site.

Kotick has been CEO of Activision since 1991 and became CEO of Activision Blizzard in 2008 when Activision merged with Vivendi Games

http://www.neowin.net/news/rumor-activision-ceo-part-of-group-interested-in-buy-myspace

Posted: Jun 11, 2011 6:59 pm