TAKING STOCK

Feds Examine Diller and Geffen Trades Before Activision Deal: WSJ

Regulators are looking at options purchased before a merger with Microsoft, but the buyers say they had no inside information.

Federal authorities are examining options purchases made by Barry Diller, his stepson Alexander von Furstenberg, and David Geffen several days before Activision Blizzard merged with Microsoft, The Wall Street Journal reported. Diller—who is the chairman of IAC, the parent company of The Daily Beast—said the trio had no inside information before the Jan. 14 purchase of options that reportedly gave them the right to buy more than 4 million Activision shares, which rose in value after the Microsoft deal became public.

“None of us had any knowledge from any person or any source or any anything about a potential acquisition of Activision by Microsoft,” Diller said in a statement. “We acted simply on the belief that Activision was undervalued and therefore had the potential for going private or being acquired. And, if we had any such information we would never have traded on it—it strains credulity to believe we would have done so 3 days before Microsoft and Activision made their announcement.”