The original meaning of an offer you can't refuse is that it is so huge, it's hard to turn down. Sorry, but I didn't think about the mob slang. If your production company has gotten large enough, chances are you are selling shares on the market, since after all, video game production needs plenty of capital. EA can buy enough of the company's stock to wedge control of the board.
The latter is somethin I don't quite get, either. I mean...selling stock in your company is optional, isn't it?
If the stock is put on the market, anyone can buy it. Which means that if a company has enough cash, they can use the stock market as a way to quickly gain shareholder's influence.
Yeah. About the best the company can do is to offer various classes of stock, such as voting and non-voting. The non-voting shareholders don't get, well, a vote, but they generally get some other benefits, like higher priority on reimbursement from sales of the company's assets if the company goes bankrupt than do holders of voting shares. The company could then withhold most of the voting stock and only sell non-voting stock.
