Super Spender

Chapter 354: 348: Self-Destruction

At this, Kodiak Kennedy could not help but laugh. His boss was quite hilarious! It was clear that he was going to crush the opposition with big spending, increasing investments to lower the shares. And to put it bluntly, he would poach from his own company and excavate all of his employees. At that point, Activision Blizzard would turn into an empty shell and he would not operate it anymore.

Although the gaming copyrights would still belong to the company, without anyone operating, how much profit could be made yearly? The company’s stock would inevitably plummet, and quite harshly. At that time, as long as Lewis didn’t operate, Artis Electronic’s stocks would become as worthless as scrap paper. If everyone leaves Activision Blizzard, it won’t be an issue for him to start a new studio and give it the same name, after all, everything falls under Lewis’s companies.

He could grant authorization as easily as drinking water. But for Artis Electronics, it’s like a nightmare. How should they play the game? Artis Electronics isn’t like the current Activision Blizzard where power is highly centralized. The largest shareholder of Artis Electronics only holds around 15% share. Every single board member has their own thoughts.

The current situation is nothing short of a tragedy for Artis Electronics. But how can that be helped when the stocks are in their hands? Lewis doesn’t know what Artis wants to do, but for now, Lewis hasn’t returned home. Instead, he’s spent two more days in the North Federation waiting. Not for the decision of Artis Electronics though.

Because during the board meetings, he abruptly realized that although Artis Electronics is indeed a competitor of Activision Blizzard, he now has absolute control. He can do whatever he wants. Artis Electronics is in no way a contender. Clearly, Artis Electronics has also realized this. As he waits for the verdict from Jay Sommer and his team, Artis Electronics took action first despite no outcomes from Jay Sommer’s side.

Artis Electronics immediately dumped their Activision Blizzard stocks on the market. Though the exposure of Lewis as the world’s richest man led to a slight increase in Activision Blizzard shares, the rise wasn’t significant. Artis Electronics’ mass-selling action sent the stocks of Activision Blizzard into a swift decline.

With 24% of the shares sold, it caused the market value of Activision Blizzard stock to plunge to about 130 billion Federal coins. Thus, Lewis was exceedingly delighted, and couldn’t help wondering if the Artis Electronics shareholders were in tears by now.

Lewis wasn’t certain about the actual price, but he was sure that the amount Damian Bryan sold to Artis Electronics exceeded the market price by 15%. However, now, the massive sell-off by Artis Electronics resulted in them only getting about 90% of the current market value. This cost them several billion Federal coins.

All that trouble of becoming a shareholder of Activision Blizzard for just a few days? Not only did Lewis almost die of laughter, all the higher-ups in Activision Blizzard felt similarly. However, Lewis did not acquire the shares that Artis Electronics sold off. There was simply no need.

Instead, Lewis called Kennedy and told him he could continue buying if he wanted to. Kennedy did not hesitate. He still had the money that Lewis used to buy his shares. Kennedy decisively bought roughly 18% of the shares. It wasn’t that Kennedy didn’t want to continue buying, rather there just weren’t any more left to buy. The remaining shares had already been bought out by others.

Kennedy also chuckled. Despite losing 5% of the shares he initially held, he completely profited. He sold 23% of the shares at 130% of their price and then bought back 18% at about 80% of the price. This unexpected gain of over a billion Federal coins would make anyone happy.

The only people left crying were those at Artis Electronics. Damian Bryan also sold some of his shares, but at least those were sold above their original price, so he made a profit. As for Artis Electronics…well, they bought high, sold low and had to witness the fact that harm only comes to those who always seek trouble.

“The birth mission of Toras is complete. Reward: All items with an exchange price below 50,000 points have been unlocked. Granting monthly bonus funds of 50 million.” After Artis Electronics sold their stocks, Zero’s voice suddenly rang out. Hearing Zero’s voice, Lewis realized that the mission of Jay Sommer’s team was practically complete.

The number of game companies in the Northern Europe Federation isn’t large. Because of the European Union’s integration and relatively small population, it doesn’t have as many game companies as Flame Nation.

This time in the Southern Federation, Jay Sommer’s team almost swept up all the big and small gaming studios, and he established a new gaming company called Windstorm. The acquisition of these studios and game companies didn’t cost much. The total was to the tune of around 20 to 30 billion Federal coins.

However, acquiring these game studios and companies symbolized the near completion of Lewis’ unification in the gaming world. More specifically in the MMO sphere, nearly all the companies in the Southern Federation running MMO are under Lewis. According to the current market share, the gaming companies under Lewis make up over 80% of the market.

Lewis didn’t purchase any domestic gaming companies, but because they control the World Game Alliance, Lewis still holds a significant market share despite not directly buying any of the domestic game companies.

All items below 50,000 points have been unlocked. This is huge news for Lewis because this means he can directly exchange a lot of items, which are especially handy to him. Even though Lewis is currently considered the world’s richest, he suddenly felt full of ambition upon completion of this mission.

In a word, let the games begin. Everything before this was nothing more than a preamble. “Olivia, explain. How can you complete the mission of looting the base of Flame Nation? Kim and the others need a huge quantity for their orders!” Lewis was told that this mission had to be completed by Olivia, and now that they’ve been successful, Lewis immediately asked for further details.

“Young master, we can rent a storage space. You can check now, the cost of renting storage shouldn’t be as high as before.” Olivia quickly responded.

“Is it so?” Lewis asked with some doubt, simultaneously checking the current rental price for storage space on his phone. Seeing the rental costs, Lewis nearly dropped his jaw in surprise.