Vivendi sells half of its Activision stake for $850m

French media giant Vivendi is to sell-off more of its investment in Activision Blizzard.

Vivendi was once a majority stakeholder in the Call of Duty publisher but that stake will now drop below six per cent as the firm offers a further 41.5m shares of Activision Blizzard stock.

It’s a deal that is estimated to generate $866m for Vivendi and lower its stake in Activision Blizzard to just 5.8 per cent following its expected completion on May 28th.

Vivendi won’t be eligible to sell of the remaining investment until 2015.

The move follows the announced split by Activision Blizzard and Vivendi last year, which saw the publisher introduce a stock buyback program to recoup 429m of Vivendi’s shares for $5.83bn.

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick also led a handful of investors in an attempt to purchase 172m of shares in the company through a deal worth an estimated €2.34bn.