Square Enix has issued an official statement denying buy-out rumours that had been circulating earlier today after reporting by Bloomberg.
The company says:
Bloomberg has reported today that there is interest from several buyers to acquire Square Enix. However, this report is not based on any announcement by SQUARE ENIX HOLDINGS CO., LTD. We do not consider selling off the company or any part of its businesses, nor have we received any offer from any third party to acquire the company or any part of its businesses.
The original reporting came from Bloomberg Japan, who in a short post claimed that multiple companies were eyeing up an acquisition of the Japanese video game publisher. The report had no details beyond that, and did not name any of the companies supposedly interested in buying Square Enix.
While Square Enix deny any intention of selling up, that doesn’t mean other companies aren’t “interested” in buying them. It feels like pretty shallow bit of speculation, but it was enough to see Square Enix’s stocks shoot up in value on the Japanese Stock Exchange. They were up a huge 13.8% by lunchtime.
Following today's M&A rumors, Square Enix stock just went into the lunch break at the Tokyo Stock Exchange at +13.80%.
(It's 11:40am Friday here in Japan.)
And yes, that's a lot for such an already large company on a single day.
— Dr. Serkan Toto / Kantan Games Inc. (@serkantoto) April 16, 2021
It’s almost certainly this skyrocketing share value that has forced Square Enix to address the rumours, but it’s still quite humorous to imaging this as a corporate equivalent to telling Bloomberg to sit down and shut up.
Square Enix is a sprawling business that goes beyond video game development to include arcade, film, manga  and merchandising. This would make it quite a challenging entity for another company to acquire, with its many constituent parts and business interests adding a lot to any possible sale price.
The start of 2020 has been pretty busy for the company. They published Hitman 3 in January with former subsidiary IO Interactive, released Bravely Default 2 for Switch, brought ambitious new looter shooter IP Outriders to market and a new-gen upgrade for Marvel’s Avengers, and also bundled out the disappointing Balan Wonderworld. There’s been plenty of ups and downs along the way, with major bugs, server issues, poor sales and more.
The rest of the year looks pretty bright, though, thanks to the upcoming Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade upgrade to the PlayStation 5 and new story content, and Final Fantasy XIV also making the jump to the new generation PlayStation 5 – it’s currently in beta testing. Looking further afield, they also have Final Fantasy XVI, Forspoken (formerly Project Athia), and PlatinumGames’ Babylon’s Fall all in development for PS5 and PC.
Source: Square Enix
