Take-Two Annual Meeting of Stockholders

[gtagirl69]

Listen to it here live: http://edge.media-server.com/m/p/u8r689dx/lan/en

 

http://ir.take2games.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=8...zA4L3htbA%3d%3d

 

 

Up for vote by shareholders, will be the reappointment of the company directors, their multi-million dollar salaries, and an extra 2.5 million shares to be used as employee based compensation (so Housers can buy more mansions, cars etc.).

 

Do you think Zelnick will be pressured to speak about GTAV, after all, his job is on the line? He made several comments about GTAIV at that annual meeting before its release. Also, on same day, Social Club launched. What will Rockstar do this year?

 

If you want to vote by proxy, buy shares before July 25th and mail in your votes.

 

 

The Q1 report is on July 31st, see: http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=516475

 

Take-Two will have to give updated financial guidance which will basically see if they still think GTAV can come out by March, 2013.

Edited September 20, 2012 by gtagirl69

[InfernoV]

Maybe they will release 2 new screenshots...........oh wait

[The__Phoenix]

Zelnick?

 

Perhaps no one would take note of this somewhat odd situation if Take-Two had shown progress. But since ZelnickMedia began running the company, shares have fallen approximately 60%.

 

Take-Two has even struggled to turn a profit. In total, the company has lost $238 million from fiscal 2007 through fiscal 2012.

 

In fiscal year 2011, the company lost $108.8 million, or 47 cents per share. For this fiscal year, analysts expect earnings per share of $2.29, much of that due to the hype for “Max Payne 3.

 

Take-Two must report compensation to top executives, but both Zelnick and Slatoff aren’t paid directly by the company. According to the terms of their agreement, T2 pays a management fee of $2.5 million to ZelnickMedia a year, with 3% annual increases. On top of the fee, in 2008, the company granted ZelnickMedia a restricted stock award of 600,000 shares of the company, which have now fully vested. It isn’t therefore totally clear how much of that money Zelnick, Feder or Slatoff individually received for their work over the years. But ZelnickMedia currently owns about 2.9 million shares of the company — worth some $28.4 million at current prices — that represent about 3.3% of shares outstanding.

 

 

http://247wallst.com/2012/07/12/take-twos-...ment-structure/

 

 

 

[Mamunda]

 

analysts expect earnings per share of $2.29, much of that due to the hype for “Max Payne 3.

 

 

Good joke

 

And what hype?

[gtagirl69]

The previous management was voted out at such a meeting, even though the company grew tremendously during their reign. Shareholders are mad at Z. He needs to proof to them long term viability in this changing industry. Sales of Max Payne 3 shows this.

Edited July 13, 2012 by gtagirl69

[GTAllDay?]

I dunno wtf you guys are talking about they love ZelnickMedia, this is straight from the last 10k report to investors saying it could hurt their business if they were to lose their relationship with them

 

 

We depend on our key management and product development personnel.

 

Our continued success will depend to a significant extent on our senior management team and our relationship with ZelnickMedia Corporation ("ZelnickMedia"). Our Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer are partners of ZelnickMedia. We are also highly dependent on the expertise, skills and knowledge of certain of our Rockstar employees and other key creative personnel responsible for content creation and development of our Grand Theft Auto titles and titles based on other brands.

 

The loss of the services of our executive officers, ZelnickMedia, our key Rockstar employees or other key creative personnel could significantly harm our business. In addition, if one or more key employees were to join a competitor or form a competing company, we may lose additional personnel, experience material interruptions in product development, delays in bringing products to market and difficulties in our relationships with licensors, suppliers and customers, which would significantly harm our business.

[MiamiVice1984]

Zelnick is a c*nt thats all i know. And i hope the old Take2 boss comes back sometime soon.

[Andreas]

 

Zelnick?

 

Perhaps no one would take note of this somewhat odd situation if Take-Two had shown progress. But since ZelnickMedia began running the company, shares have fallen approximately 60%.

 

Take-Two has even struggled to turn a profit. In total, the company has lost $238 million from fiscal 2007 through fiscal 2012.

 

In fiscal year 2011, the company lost $108.8 million, or 47 cents per share. For this fiscal year, analysts expect earnings per share of $2.29, much of that due to the hype for “Max Payne 3.

 

Take-Two must report compensation to top executives, but both Zelnick and Slatoff aren’t paid directly by the company. According to the terms of their agreement, T2 pays a management fee of $2.5 million to ZelnickMedia a year, with 3% annual increases. On top of the fee, in 2008, the company granted ZelnickMedia a restricted stock award of 600,000 shares of the company, which have now fully vested. It isn’t therefore totally clear how much of that money Zelnick, Feder or Slatoff individually received for their work over the years. But ZelnickMedia currently owns about 2.9 million shares of the company — worth some $28.4 million at current prices —  that represent about 3.3% of shares outstanding.

 

 

http://247wallst.com/2012/07/12/take-twos-...ment-structure/

In short words: You want to say that Strauss Zelnick is incapable? How was the old TakeTwo boss?

[i am a girl on the internet]

I really hope Zelnick gets voted the f­uck out of there.

[Triple Vacuum Seal]

Part of me wants to vote out Zelnick because of the wait, but my beef is R* not being its own publisher all together. Most other CEOs would've handled the GTAV information in the same way.

 

TTWO is about a hell of a lot more than GTAV but R* is the major component to their value IMO. I might vote to keep him around considering he has a profitable vision for the company judging from the interviews. He is also willing to enter the mobile market, which is where a lot more gaming money is coming from nowadays. Besides, he's been around since 2007 and GTAV info. will be flowing freely by the time this shareholders meeting happens anyway. He likely knows what hes doing with his MBA and Law Degree from Harvard unlike most people on this forum.

Edited July 13, 2012 by canttakemyid

[theworldfamous]

Why the hate for Zelnick? The way I see it he's turned a no-brand second rate publisher into a large company that probably has the best cards in terms of IP, technology and knowhow going into the next generation. Take two is playing the long game here. And don't forget, under Take Two Rockstar was allowed to grow from one studio building one game out of cheap middeware every couple of years to arguable the most acclaimed developer of this generation, handling at least three to five titles (that we know off) at any time and putting out one AAA title every year, were allowed full control of their property.

 

If I had money on take two and maybe I do, I'd be pretty comfortable to let it sit there for the next couple of years. Of course, if you want to make a quick buck there's better things to bet on, like activision...but then you gotta worry about where you're gonna take all that money when they start to tank, and they inevitably will.

 

Right now, ubi and take two seem to be the only publishers with a long term strategy that's about advancing gaming. EA and activision? You only hear them about quick monetization.. that's their favorite buzzword and that indicates to me they're being run by venture capital vultures that just want to drive it up and up until it has nowhere left to go, explode the bubble, pick it clean and leave the carcass to rot.

[Triple Vacuum Seal]

Why the hate for Zelnick? The way I see it he's turned a no-brand second rate publisher into a large company that probably has the best cards in terms of IP, technology and knowhow going into the next generation. Take two is playing the long game here. And don't forget, under Take Two Rockstar was allowed to grow from one studio building one game out of cheap middeware every couple of years to arguable the most acclaimed developer of this generation, handling at least three to five titles (that we know off) at any time and putting out one AAA title every year, were allowed full control of their property.

 

If I had money on take two and maybe I do, I'd be pretty comfortable to let it sit there for the next couple of years. Of course, if you want to make a quick buck there's better things to bet on, like activision...but then you gotta worry about where you're gonna take all that money when they start to tank, and they inevitably will.

 

Right now, ubi and take two seem to be the only publishers with a long term strategy that's about advancing gaming. EA and activision? You only hear them about quick monetization.. that's their favorite buzzword and that indicates to me they're being run by venture capital vultures that just want to drive it up and up until it has nowhere left to go, explode the bubble, pick it clean and leave the carcass to rot.

I personally think that R* would be better off as their own publisher, but I agree that TTWO has been better for them than just about any other publisher could've been. TTWO and R* both pledge to quality first which is respectable and something that I feel I take for granted sometimes. For some reason it seems that the president and VP of R* (Sam and Dan Houser) are more artists than a businessman so maybe it's good that R* outsourced the publishing services to TTWO. It just seems as if TTWO isn't carrying its weight development wise in terms of matching R*'s output quality.

 

*Zelnick has only been around since 2007 BTW (considerin the GTA timeline).

[grope_4_that_date]

We'll get news before that.

[Charlie Meadows]

Zelnick, Feder or Slatoff individually received for their work over the years. But ZelnickMedia currently owns about 2.9 million shares of the company — worth some $28.4 million at current prices — that represent about 3.3% of shares outstanding.

If he's thinking he's on the way out then that might be why the release schedule is structured the way it is. A bunch of AAA titles as close as they can be to avoid cannibalization and Zelnick sells the stock options once the price per share skyrockets from GTA V profits. He certainly wouldn't be the first CEO to pull this kind of trick.

[Adriaan]

 

Take Two’s Strauss Zelnick is among the video-game players interested in Vivendi’s 61 percent stake in Activision.

Zelnick, who is here in Sun Valley, doesn’t have the $8 billion to buy it outright but could be part of a bidding group, sources said.

 

-New York Post, July 13th, 2012

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/goog...P#ixzz20VNjypFO

 

 

"Take Activision Blizzard Two", anyone?

[Mamunda]

Damn, If Take Two bought it, they will be like most powerful video game company ever!

 

Imagine having GTA, Diablo, Bioshock and Call of Duty

 

Earnings in level of billions $$$

 

BTW I wonder what joke do Gates and Buffet share. They probably laugh at people who earn 1 million $ monthly

Edited July 13, 2012 by Mamunda

[Andreas]

 

Take Two’s Strauss Zelnick is among the video-game players interested in Vivendi’s 61 percent stake in Activision.

Zelnick, who is here in Sun Valley, doesn’t have the $8 billion to buy it outright but could be part of a bidding group, sources said.

 

-New York Post, July 13th, 2012

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/goog...P#ixzz20VNjypFO

 

 

"Take Activision Blizzard Two", anyone?

Oh my god. I think the quality of CoD would be way better if TakeTwo will be the parent-company of Activision. If TakeTwo buy them then they are even bigger than EA.

[Triple Vacuum Seal]

 

Damn, If Take Two bought it, they will be like most powerful video game company ever!

 

Imagine having GTA, Diablo, Bioshock and Call of Duty

 

Earnings in level of billions $$$

 

BTW I wonder what joke do Gates and Buffet share. They probably laugh at people who earn 1 million $ monthly

It would be nice seeing a company that powerful that actually cares about quality but as long as the firm size doesn't feed firm dominance. Firm dominance is bad for the market and comes back to hurt consumers like you and me.

 

Sorry for going off topic; but people as rich as Buffet and Gates generally don't care about personal financial security anymore. Simply having money into the billions actually develops into a responsibility burden for most individuals. Their lives are wonderful because of their money, but the responsibility of protecting money of that magnitude outweighs the reward most of the time. Therefore, they embrace their image as financiers and entrepreneurs with wealth, but don't see themselves in as much as an envious light as most people think.

[Shreddy Krueger]

Part of me wants to vote out Zelnick because of the wait, but my beef is R* not being its own publisher all together. Most other CEOs would've handled the GTAV information in the same way.

 

TTWO is about a hell of a lot more than GTAV but R* is the major component to their value IMO. I might vote to keep him around considering he has a profitable vision for the company judging from the interviews. He is also willing to enter the mobile market, which is where a lot more gaming money is coming from nowadays. Besides, he's been around since 2007 and GTAV info. will be flowing freely by the time this shareholders meeting happens anyway. He likely knows what hes doing with his MBA and Law Degree from Harvard unlike most people on this forum.

Remember, the whole industry is beginning to change, not just R*/TTWO. Right now, along with the entire economy, we're in a downturn. It's not becuase Zelnick won't release details about GTAV, it's because the industry is in transition, in many ways.

 

As you say, mobile gaming is on it's way to becoming a significant portion of the gaming industry, and company's will have to embrace this in order to survive the transition. I personally like the way TTWO is approaching this market and I believe in a short while it will become beneficial to TTWO as a whole and expand the company.

 

The consoles (which are still primarily the bulk of gaming sales) are on their last legs. It's safe to assume that a new gen of consoles will be released by holiday 2013 or early 2014. This leaves the gaming industry in limbo: as the date draws closer, more and more company's are transitioning to new hardware and developing games for the new gen, and therefore are focusing less on the current gen. E3 2012 showed the last wave of blockbuster games that are going to come out on current gen consoles. Once the new consoles are launched, within a year or so the gaming industry will begin to flourish, as developers become more able to optimize their games and get more out of it, just like this gen.

 

With regards to GTAV, and with all the upcoming events that R*/GTAV could be a part of (TTWO financial conference Aug 7th, Shareholders meeting Sep 20, Gamescom, September/October GameInformer), I believe August is going to be a busy month for GTAV. Whether it releases in 2012 or not is a different story, but I believe that we are on the cusp of getting some really good info about GTAV.

[Triple Vacuum Seal]

I think that TTWO is on the right track. From R*'s point of view, it seems that they could better capitalize on their creativity and open world game quality if they did their own publishing instead. Zelnick will do great things with TTWO as a whole (likely turning its shares into investments instead of trades), but I'm not so sure what he will do for R*. R* seems to develop stronger titles than 2k games (its counterpart under the TTWO name). The premises and settings of R* games just seem to have more potential.

 

TTWO is headed in the right direction nonetheless with their quality-first attitude and smart leadership. I'm personally just not confident enough in TTWO to hold after the GTAV release. The video game industry is a tad bit too cyclical for my taste when it comes to the long term gains.

[Adriaan]

 

The consoles (which are still primarily the bulk of gaming sales) are on their last legs. It's safe to assume that a new gen of consoles will be released by holiday 2013 or early 2014. This leaves the gaming industry in limbo: as the date draws closer, more and more company's are transitioning to new hardware and developing games for the new gen, and therefore are focusing less on the current gen. E3 2012 showed the last wave of blockbuster games that are going to come out on current gen consoles. Once the new consoles are launched, within a year or so the gaming industry will begin to flourish, as developers become more able to optimize their games and get more out of it, just like this gen.

I think you're very much right about that. Look at data gathered from this survey, particularly the first point:

 

 

- 60% of respondents [currently] have no plans on releasing titles on current hardware (360, PS3, Wii) after 2013.

- 80% find Microsoft's next console easiest to work with, majority feels it will be sales leader over next five years

- 63% feel Wii U would be most challenging to develop for.

 

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/01/the...m_medium=social

[Mr Rabbit]

only one thing there is no significant leap FOR the next gen, so buying MS's new console will be a waste of money (sony said they won't do one til a significant step forward can be made)

[Triple Vacuum Seal]

only one thing there is no significant leap FOR the next gen, so buying MS's new console will be a waste of money (sony said they won't do one til a significant step forward can be made)

Basically Sony won't do one until they can see what Microsoft does with the next Xbox. Coming out after the 360 wasn't a bad approach for them with the PS3.

 

Anyway, I agree too that the sun is setting on this gen and the discretion of major console developers has little to do with it. As you guys pointed out, this is an industry trend. When the console performance lags, the PC sector grows for a bit to indicate the market need for new/better software. At least that's how I would see it if I was an executive in the industry.

[Mr Rabbit]

only one thing there is no significant leap FOR the next gen, so buying MS's new console will be a waste of money (sony said they won't do one til a significant step forward can be made)

Basically Sony won't do one until they can see what Microsoft does with the next Xbox. Coming out after the 360 wasn't a bad approach for them with the PS3.

 

Anyway, I agree too that the sun is setting on this gen and the discretion of major console developers has little to do with it. As you guys pointed out, this is an industry trend. When the console performance lags, the PC sector grows for a bit to indicate the market need for new/better software. At least that's how I would see it if I was an executive in the industry.

can see the point but no significant leap like the last 2 gens. But I suppose consoles need to keep up maybe true HD instead of 720p is the next step, bit anti climactic, thanks mr white you always did explain things well.

[Triple Vacuum Seal]

only one thing there is no significant leap FOR the next gen, so buying MS's new console will be a waste of money (sony said they won't do one til a significant step forward can be made)

Basically Sony won't do one until they can see what Microsoft does with the next Xbox. Coming out after the 360 wasn't a bad approach for them with the PS3.

 

Anyway, I agree too that the sun is setting on this gen and the discretion of major console developers has little to do with it. As you guys pointed out, this is an industry trend. When the console performance lags, the PC sector grows for a bit to indicate the market need for new/better software. At least that's how I would see it if I was an executive in the industry.

can see the point but no significant leap like the last 2 gens. But I suppose consoles need to keep up maybe true HD instead of 720p is the next step, bit anti climactic, thanks mr white you always did explain things well.

Your welcome . I see what you mean about the lack of a significant leap. I feel like next gen will give the consumer the ability to upgrade and expand capabilities. Maybe the ability to purchase new graphics cards and what not increase the console performance in later years. Forward compatibility would be a nice feature next gen.

[Audiophile]

Mod Edit: Topics merged from this point onwards

 

I haven't noticed a thread dedicated to this topic wherein we can discuss this upcoming meeting and I have read a number of people asking for a source as to how some of us know this meeting is on the 20th.

 

It's less than a month away now so I thought I should start this thread to keep discussion on this topic in here. The only other thread I have seen on this is mostly about the July 31st conference and it's more than a month old.

 

http://ir.take2games.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=8...zA4L3htbA%3d%3d

 

Is where it is stated that the next meeting is on September 20th.

 

I posted my thoughts on this in another thread but I'll just quote them here to get the discussion going:

 

 

It just seems in a way to me logical that at this annual conference they would finally tell their stockholders how they expect R* to earn 55% of 1.8 billion by March 2013; either thru R* having announced it before the meeting or something being stated at the meeting by TTWO. Hopefully those numbers don't change on September 20th either.

 

But then again, nothing about V has been logical so far. So time to hunker down and see what happens by/on September 20th. We can't be far from answers....in 2 months or so it'll have been a damn year.

Edited August 27, 2012 by Adriaan

[Durden]

Hm I thought it was in December. This should be interesting.

[Mr.Mordecai]

No. No. No. No.

 

PLEASE lay off with the financial stuff. I thought we would be done with it since CJs topic got locked.

 

 

[A8flyer]

all eyes on this

[NKOH]

Are you sure it's so soon?

 

Edit: Never mind, didn't see the link.

 

To be quite honest I don't think we'll hear any more on the 20th than we have at the last two conference calls. Since we already know they're expecting over 50% of shares from R* by March, it's pretty much already obvious that we'll have GTA V by then. There's not really much more they can tell us apart from "GTA V is coming out by March 13" - which we already know. I think when the time comes to announce the release date, Rockstar will just tell us themselves.

Edited August 27, 2012 by NKOH