EA's bid "provides insufficient value", says Take-Two boss

Here. Take-Two head Strauss Zelnick has hit back at EA's hostile move of revealing public intentions to acquire his company by saying the offer of $26 per share "provides insufficient value" to shareholders and is designed to purely exploit the impending release of GTA IV.

Electronic Arts’ proposal provides insufficient value to our shareholders and comes at absolutely the wrong time… Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our creative and business teams, Take-Two has made enormous strides in the past 10 months toward our common goal of being the most creative, innovative and efficient company in our industry…

Given the great importance of the Grand Theft Auto IV launch to the value of Take-Two, the Board has determined that the only prudent and responsible course for our Company and its stockholders is to defer these discussions until immediately after Grand Theft Auto IV is released.

Therefore, we offered to initiate discussions with EA on April 30th, 2008 (the day after Grand Theft Auto IV is scheduled to release). We believe this offer demonstrated our commitment to pursuing all avenues to maximize stockholder value, while we believe that EA’s refusal to entertain this path is evidence of their desire to acquire Take-Two at a significant discount, whereas we believe this value rightly belongs to our stockholders.

Expect this to run and run.