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Westland affair

The Westland affair in 1985–86 was an episode in which Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and her Secretary of State for Defence, Michael Heseltine, went public over a cabinet dispute with questions raised about whether the conventions of cabinet government were being observed and about the integrity of senior politicians.

The argument was over the future of Westland Helicopters, Britain's last helicopter manufacturer, which was to be the subject of a rescue bid. The Defence Secretary, Heseltine, favoured a European solution, integrating Westland with a consortium including British Aerospace (BAe), Italian (Agusta) and French companies. Thatcher and Trade and Industry Secretary Leon Brittan, while ostensibly maintaining a neutral stance, wanted to see Westland merge with Sikorsky, an American company.

Heseltine refused to accept Thatcher's choice and claimed that Thatcher had refused to allow a free ministerial discussion of the matter, even suggesting that she had lied about cancelling a scheduled meeting. In January 1986, when he was ordered to cease campaigning for his European consortium, he resigned and walked out of a Cabinet meeting. Brittan was then forced to resign for having ordered the leaking to the press of a confidential legal letter critical of Heseltine, and for his lack of candour to the House of Commons about his efforts to persuade BAe to withdraw from Heseltine's consortium.

Thatcher's survival as Prime Minister briefly appeared in question, but she rode out the crisis. The episode nonetheless was an embarrassment to the Conservative Thatcher government and undermined her reputation.

April 1985
The Westland affair originated with Alan Bristow's bid for the company in April 1985. By June, Bristow was threatening to end his bid unless the Government assured him that there would be future orders for the company from the Ministry of Defence and that the repayment of over £40 million of launch aid for Westland's newest helicopter from the Department of Trade and Industry was waived.

Heseltine at this time was uninterested in Westland helicopters when approached by Norman Tebbit, the then Trade and Industry Secretary, as plenty of American helicopters were available to meet Britain's defence requirements. He attended two meetings about the company's future in June 1985, chaired by Thatcher. It was decided that Tebbit should persuade the Bank of England to co-operate with the main creditors in the hope that a recovery plan and new management would end the threat of receivership.

Bristow withdrew his bid and in late June Sir John Cuckney was brought in as chairman of Westland.

November 1985
Cuckney proposed that a new minority shareholder of 29.9% be introduced to Westland. No British firm was willing, but Sikorsky was interested. Cuckney proposed that Westland merge with United Technologies Corporation, of which the US company Sikorsky was a subsidiary. Heseltine came out against this plan after realising that Westland would probably become responsible for assembling the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk, which the Ministry of Defence would then be under great pressure to buy. He preferred Westland to go into receivership so that British companies GEC and British Aerospace could buy the viable parts of the business.

In mid-October Heseltine suggested a European consortium which would include French Aérospatiale, German MBB and Italian Agusta (Sikorsky was now negotiating a strategic linkup with Italian Fiat). Leon Brittan, who had replaced Tebbit as Trade and Industry Secretary in September 1985, at first urged Thatcher to consider a European option (Heseltine later claimed Brittan this option, although Brittan denied this). The Government was officially neutral (i.e. arguing that it was a matter for Westland directors and shareholders) but by November Heseltine was lobbying hard for the European option.

In late November Peter Levene, Chief of Procurement at the Ministry of Defence, had a meeting at the Ministry with his French, West German and Italian counterparts (the National Armaments Directors or NADs) and the representatives of the consortium, and agreed to "buy European" for certain classes of helicopters. If Westland went ahead with Sikorsky its helicopters, under this new agreement, would be unable to be bought by the four governments. The meeting was later praised by the House of Commons Defence Select Committee. Thatcher, who only learned of the meeting through Cuckney, was displeased, as were Brittan and the Treasury, who thought the US option might be cheaper, although Thatcher and Leon Brittan kept to their official pretence of neutrality.

December 1985
In early December Thatcher had two ad hoc meetings with Heseltine, Brittan, Tebbit, William Whitelaw (Deputy Prime Minister), Geoffrey Howe (Foreign Secretary) and Nigel Lawson (Chancellor of the Exchequer) on 5 and 6 December. Brittan argued that the NADs' opposition should be set aside, but Howe and Tebbit were not unsympathetic to Heseltine's proposed consortium, and the decision was deferred to the Cabinet Economic Affairs Committee (E(A)) on Monday 9 December 1985. Cuckney and a Westland financial adviser were invited to attend the E(A) meeting. Cuckney said that it was the management's view that the Sikorsky option was the best one. A majority of the E(A) meeting agreed to dismiss the NADs' opposition. Thatcher, who complained that three hours had been spent discussing a company with a market capitalisation of only £30m (a tiny amount in government terms), allowed Heseltine until 4 pm on Friday 13 December to submit a viable proposal for a European deal. He did (with British Aerospace and GEC now part of his consortium), but Westland's directors rejected it and chose Sikorsky. Heseltine had expected that there would be a second meeting of E(A) to discuss his consortium, but no such meeting was called; Thatcher later claimed that the Monday meeting had agreed to leave the decision to Westland to take, but it later emerged that Ridley and Lord Young placed such a meeting in their diaries and had been told by Number Ten that it had been cancelled. Heseltine threatened resignation for the first time.

At Cabinet on Thursday 12 December Heseltine had an angry exchange with Thatcher about the allegedly cancelled meeting (Thatcher claimed that no such meeting had ever been scheduled). Westland was not on the Cabinet agenda that day and Thatcher refused to permit a discussion on the matter, arguing that Cabinet could not do so without the necessary papers. Heseltine asked for his dissent to be minuted, and this was not done, although Cabinet Secretary Robert Armstrong claimed that this had been an error and added it himself. On Monday 16 December Brittan told the House of Commons that the decision was up to Westland; on Wednesday 18 December Heseltine won the backing of the Commons Defence Committee for the European Consortium's latest bid. On Thursday 19 December the matter was discussed at Cabinet for ten minutes: Cabinet approved leaving the decision to Westland and Heseltine was ordered to cease campaigning for the European option.

Over Christmas, Thatcher discussed with close colleagues the option of sacking Heseltine, as Brittan had urged her to do (Chief Whip John Wakeham cautioned against), but—as she later admitted in her memoirs—she shrank from doing so as he was too popular and weighty a political figure. Thatcher and ministerial colleagues spent two and a half hours writing three successive drafts of a letter threatening Heseltine with the sack, but did not send it as her press adviser Bernard Ingham advised that Heseltine might use it an excuse to resign.

January 1986: leaks
By now the political row was being discussed in the media, partly because of the lack of other news in December. Cuckney wrote to Thatcher, at her behest, asking for reassurance that the Sikorsky deal would not damage Westland's business prospects in Europe. Heseltine was not satisfied with Thatcher's draft reply when he saw it and consulted Sir Patrick Mayhew (Solicitor-General and acting Attorney-General as Sir Michael Havers was ill) on the grounds that the government might be legally liable for any incorrect advice. Heseltine supplied extra material about the risk of losing European business, which Thatcher did not include in her reply to Cuckney. Thatcher replied to Cuckney to the effect that the British Government would continue to support Westland in gaining orders in Europe.

In early January Heseltine then wrote to David Horne of Lloyds Merchant Bank, who was advising the European consortium (in reply to planted questions from Horne which had been dictated to him over the phone by one of Heseltine's staff), giving him the advice which Thatcher had declined to include in her letter to Cuckney. Contradicting Thatcher's reassurances to Cuckney, Heseltine claimed that the Sikorsky deal would be "incompatible with participation" in European helicopter projects. Heseltine's letter was leaked to The Times. This was a blatant challenge to Thatcher's authority as Heseltine had not consulted Downing Street, the Department of Trade and Industry or Mayhew before writing to Horne.

Heseltine's letter to Horne, on Thatcher's request, was referred to the Solicitor-General, Patrick Mayhew. Mayhew sent a reply to Heseltine, noting "material inaccuracies" in Heseltine's letter, and asking Heseltine to write to Horne again, correcting them. Mayhew's letter of rebuke to Heseltine—marked "Confidential"—reached Heseltine at lunchtime on Monday 6 January and was immediately and selectively leaked to the Press Association by Colette Bowe, chief information officer at the Department of Trade and Industry, at Brittan's request. There was controversy over whose orders Colette Bowe was following. The Attorney-General, Sir Michael Havers, took a stern view of leaks, especially of confidential legal advice, and threatened to resign if an official inquiry was not set up to look into it. Thatcher agreed to do this.

January 1986: Heseltine resigns
Cabinet met on the morning of Thursday 9 January, with Thatcher already having agreed her position with close colleagues at Chequers that weekend, and arranged that Scottish Secretary George Younger should take over as Defence Secretary if Heseltine resigned. Westland was first on the agenda, and Heseltine and Brittan were permitted to put their cases. Heseltine had won the moral high ground over the leaking saga, but Lawson recorded that he seemed obsessive at Cabinet and attracted little sympathy. Thatcher then reiterated her position, which had already been endorsed by the Cabinet, that Westland's future was a matter for Westland to decide, and announced that as this was a time of business negotiations all answers to questions about Westland must be cleared through the Cabinet Office. Heseltine agreed. However, in response to a question by Nicholas Ridley she then confirmed that this also applied to statements which had been made. Heseltine argued that he should be allowed to reaffirm statements he had already made but Thatcher disagreed, arguing that Cabinet collective responsibility should be observed. Heseltine protested that there had been no collective responsibility, gathered up his papers and left. Although eyewitness accounts differ as to the exact details, Peter Jenkins claims that Heseltine lost his cool and proclaimed "I can no longer be a member of this Cabinet". Heseltine then walked out of Downing Street and announced his resignation to the assembled media.

Thatcher then adjourned the Cabinet for a brief break. George Younger was then offered and accepted the office of Secretary of State for Defence, which Heseltine had just relinquished. The Prime Minister's office then requested Malcolm Rifkind to take up Younger's previous job, Secretary of State for Scotland, which he accepted. Cabinet then resumed.

At 4 pm that day at the Ministry of Defence (rather than waiting to make a statement to the House of Commons when it resumed four days later) Heseltine delivered a 3,000 word, 22 minute resignation statement detailing his grievances. He blamed Thatcher's intransigence, saying his views were ignored. He may well have prepared this earlier, although his private secretary Richard Mottram says not. To Thatcher's fury Defence officials had helped him throughout the crisis and in preparing this document. Thatcher sent a letter to Heseltine, as is customary on these occasions.

Brittan resigns; Thatcher survives
On 13 January, Thatcher held a meeting with Whitelaw, Brittan, Younger and John Wakeham to decide what should then happen. The conclusion was that Brittan, rather than the Prime Minister, should reply to Heseltine's statement on that day.

In his resignation statement in the House of Commons Heseltine accused Brittan of pressuring Sir Raymond Lygo, CEO of British Aerospace, to withdraw from the European Consortium. In response to questions in the House from Heseltine Brittan denied that he had received a letter from Lygo, but later had to admit that he had received a letter from Sir Austin Pearce, Chairman of British Aerospace; he had not disclosed it, he claimed, because it was marked Private and Strictly Confidential. He was forced to return to the House a few hours later to apologise.

On 15 January there was a debate on Westland in the Commons in which Thatcher replied to Neil Kinnock, the leader of the Labour Party. Thatcher listed all the ministerial, committee and Cabinet meetings on Westland. Heseltine then made a speech criticising the way collective responsibility had been damaged over Westland.

Sir Robert Armstrong, the Cabinet Secretary, held an inquiry into the leaking of Mayhew's letter and reported his findings to the Prime Minister on 21 January. Armstrong concluded that Brittan had told Bowe to leak Mayhew's letter through a telephone conversation to Roger Mogg, Brittan's private secretary. Thatcher is said to have asked Brittan four times: "Leon, why didn't you tell me." Havers, who demanded the inquiry, later claimed: "Unless the PM is the most marvellous actress I've ever seen in my life she was as shocked as anybody that in fact it was on Leon Brittan's instructions." At the time Brittan claimed he had misunderstood Thatcher's wishes but later (on the television programme The Thatcher Factor on 7 April 1989) admitted that he had acted on the "express" instructions of Charles Powell and Bernard Ingham, Thatcher's two senior advisers. On 23 January, Thatcher had to make a speech to the Commons on Armstrong's inquiry. The following day's Glasgow Herald described Thatcher's speech as "lackluster". Scottish Conservative MP and former Trade Minister, Alex Fletcher responded by saying that "the integrity of the Cabinet" was at stake and asked Thatcher if she thought her statement had "enhanced the integrity of your Cabinet?", reportedly causing Mayhew and Havers, to wince.

Brittan was being heavily criticised because of the fallout from the leak of the Mayhew letter and because of his lack of candour about the letter from British Aerospace, which critics characterised as misleading of parliament. A meeting of the 1922 Committee of Conservative back-benchers, held after Thatcher's speech on 23 January, demanded Brittan's resignation. At the meeting 12 out of 18 speakers called for Brittan to go, with only one MP, Jonathan Aitken, speaking in his defence. On 24 January therefore Brittan resigned because "it has become clear to me that I no longer command the full confidence of my colleagues".

On 27 January, Labour set down an adjournment motion. Whitelaw, Howe, Wakeham, John Biffen and Douglas Hurd helped Thatcher draft her speech for this occasion. Ronald Millar, one of the Prime Minister's friends, was asked to help revise the speech and Thatcher remarked to him that she might not be Prime Minister by six o'clock that evening if things went badly.

Neil Kinnock, the leader of the Opposition, was generally thought to have made a poor opening speech. Alan Clark recorded in his diary: "For a few seconds Kinnock had her cornered ... But then he had an attack of wind, gave her time to recover." Heseltine was frustrated at Kinnock's failure to exploit the moment and claimed that Thatcher's statement brought "the politics of the matter to an end" and that he would support the Government in the lobby.

Sikorsky then bought Westland, aided by mysterious prior purchases by mystery buyers, suspected by Cuckney and others, although without clear proof, of being an illegal concert party.

Motivations of the actors
Westland damaged Thatcher's reputation for credibility and made her look anti-European for the first time. It has been suggested that Thatcher's keenness on American control of Westland may have been linked to the Al-Yamamah arms deal, or that the US might have wanted Westland to sell Black Hawk helicopters to Saudi Arabia in circumvention of Congressional rules which prevented US arms sales to that country at the time.

Leon Brittan's behaviour was thought in part to have been motivated by resentment at his demotion from Home Secretary to Trade and Industry Secretary in September 1985. However, he also thought Heseltine's mooted European consortium to be monopolistic and anti-competitive.

Apart from his clash of personalities with Thatcher, it was thought that Heseltine, concerned at having to take responsibility for Defence cuts which had been put back until 1986, and worried that Thatcher was unlikely to promote him further, was looking for an excuse to resign. Resigning would put him in good stead to be elected party leader after, as seemed likely at the time, the Conservatives would lose the next election due by summer 1988 at the latest.

Heseltine retired to the back benches and spent nearly five years conducting an undeclared campaign for the party leadership. Although the Thatcher government recovered in the opinion polls and was re-elected in 1987 by a landslide, eventually Heseltine challenged her in November 1990, polling well enough to hasten her resignation.

title: Westland affair


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Gesine Lötzsch

Gesine Lötzsch (born 7 August 1961) is a German politician of the left-wing party Die Linke ("The Left"). In 2010, with Klaus Ernst, she was elected president of the party.

Biography
Born at Berlin-Lichtenberg in what then was East Germany, Lötzsch joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in 1984 and continued a member of its successor parties: the SED-PDS (1989–1990), the PDS, (1990–2005), Die Linkspartei.PDS (2005–2007), and from 2007, Die Linke. In 2002, as a candidate of the Party of Democratic Socialism, Lötzsch was elected to the German parliament (the Bundestag) for the constituency Berlin-Lichtenberg, which she continues to represent today. For her first term, she and Petra Pau were the only PDS deputies in the chamber as the party failed to surpass the 5% electoral threshold. In the 2021 German federal elections her winning her constituency again proved pivotal as her party again failed to surpass the electoral threshold but gained representation proportional to its vote share due to having won three constituencies (in addition to hers Berlin-Treptow-Köpenick won by Gregor Gysi and Leipzig II won by Sören Pellmann).

Lötzsch has been criticized for suggesting that former employees of the Stasi, the secret police of the former East German state, should be allowed to serve in parliaments and governments. The leader of the Alliance '90/The Greens, Claudia Roth, claimed that Gesine Lötzsch wants to "sweep the past under the carpet". Lötzsch's local party group in Berlin-Lichtenberg has invited former Stasi employees and informers to speak on several occasions with her support: for instance, Erich Mielke's immediate deputy, Werner Grossmann, was invited as a speaker. Green member of parliament Wolfgang Wieland criticized her for appearing as a speaker before a revisionist association, the Initiativgemeinschaft zum Schutz der sozialen Rechte (tr. the Community Initiative for the Protection of the Social Rights).

Gesine Lötzsch was married to Ronald Lötzsch (1931–2018), who in 2010 was revealed to have been an informer for the Stasi.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Gesine Lötzsch


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Westland Whirlwind (helicopter)

The Westland Whirlwind helicopter was a British licence-built version of the U.S. Sikorsky S-55/H-19 Chickasaw. It primarily served with the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm in anti-submarine and search and rescue roles. It was also exported to other countries, and the Whirlwind was succeeded by the turbine powered Westland Wessex (based on the Sikorsky H-34) which was developed from the H-19/Whirlwind. The helicopter was made in many variants using a variety of radial (piston) and turbine engines.

Whirlwind helicopters fitted with turbine power served right up until the early 1980s, and a converted Whirlwind was in the Queen's Flight.

Design and development
In 1950, Westland Aircraft, already building the American Sikorsky S-51 under licence as the Westland Dragonfly, purchased the rights to manufacture and sell Sikorsky's larger Sikorsky S-55 helicopter. While a Sikorsky-built pattern aircraft was flown by Westland in June 1951, converting the design to meet British standards (including the provision of a revised main-rotor gearbox), was time-consuming, and the first prototype British aircraft, registered G-AMJT, powered by the 600 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1340-40 Wasp did not fly until August 1953. This was followed by ten Whirlwind HAR.1s, which entered service shortly afterwards. They served in non-combat roles, including search and rescue and communications functions. The HAR.3 had a larger 700 hp Wright R-1300-3 Cyclone 7 engine.

The performance of early versions was limited by the power of the American Wasp or Cyclone engines, and in 1955, the HAR.5, powered by an uprated engine, the Alvis Leonides Major, flew for the first time. This was followed by the similarly powered HAS.7, which became the first British helicopter designed for anti-submarine warfare in the front-line when it entered service in 1957. It could either be equipped with a dipping Sonar for submarine detection or carry a torpedo, but could not carry both simultaneously, so sonar equipped "Hunters" were used to direct torpedo armed "Killers". The HAS.7 was powered by a 750 hp (560 kW) Alvis Leonides Major 755/1 radial engine. It had a hovering ceiling at 9400 ft and a range of 334 miles at 86 mph.

In 1960 Westland introduced a Whirlwind powered by the 1,000 hp Bristol Siddeley Gnome turboshaft, the greater power giving much improved performance over the earlier piston-engined variants; helicopters receiving this modification were redesignated as the HAR.9. The Gnome featured an early computer controlled fuel system that removed variations in engine power and made for much easier handling by the pilot.

More than 400 Whirlwinds were built, of which nearly 100 were exported to foreign customers.

Some Whirlwinds were converted to turbine power and served well into the 1970s.

Operational service
848 Naval Air Squadron of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm was the first squadron to receive HAR.1s, which replaced Sikorsky-built HAR.21 versions of the Whirlwind, for utility and search-and-rescue service from July 1954. After entering service with the Royal Navy, the Whirlwind also entered service with the Royal Air Force and French Navy, which received 37 Whirlwind HAR.2 between 1954 and 1957.

The Royal Air Force Air Sea Rescue Services used Whirlwinds painted in overall yellow for rescuing people in distress around the coast of the United Kingdom. Westland Wessex, and eventually Westland Sea King, helicopters later supplemented and eventually replaced Whirlwinds in this role.

The last Whirlwind was retired from service in 1982, and the last HAR.10 in 1981.

Two upgraded Whirlwinds (HCC.8 models) were added to the Queen's Flight in 1959, and eventually replaced by the Wessex helicopter.

Variants

 * WS-55 Series 1 : 44 built; American engines (Pratt & Whitney R-1340-40 Wasp), transport helicopters for military and civilian use
 * WS-55 Series 2 : 19 built; Alvis engines (Alvis Leonides Major 755), civilian use
 * WS-55 Series 3 : 5 built; Gnome turboshaft (Bristol Siddeley Gnome 101), civilian use
 * HAR.1 : 10 built; RN service; Search and rescue
 * HAR.2 : 33 built; RAF service from 1955
 * HC.2 : RAF service
 * HAR.3 : 25 built; RN service; Wright R-1300 Cyclone 7 engine
 * HAR.4 : 24 built; Improved HAR.2 for hot and high conditions, RAF service
 * HAR.5 : 3 built; Alvis Leonides Major engine and a 3 degree droop of the tail boom for increased main rotor clearance; RN service
 * HAR.6 : 1 ordered with Turbomeca Twin Turmo engine but completed as an HAR.5
 * HAR.7 : 40 built; RN duties – 6 converted to HAR.9's
 * HAS.7 : 89 built; RN anti-submarine duties – 1 torpedo; 12 used as Royal Marine transports, 6 converted to HAR.9's
 * HCC.8 : 2 built; Royal Flight transport, VVIP later converted to HAR.10's
 * HAR.9 : 12 conversions of HAS.7 and HAR.7 with a Bristol Siddeley Gnome gas turbine replacing the Leonides Major engine, RN service
 * HC.10 : RAF service
 * HAR.10 : 68 built; powered by a Bristol Siddeley Gnome turboshaft, RAF service, transport and air-sea rescue
 * HCC.12 : 2 built; Royal Flight,

The model numbers for the US-built evaluation models were
 * HAR.21 : 10 built by Sikorsky; rescue. Equivalent to US Marine HRS-2.
 * HAS.22 : 15 built by Sikorsky; anti-submarine. Equivalent to HO4S-3.

Military operators
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19 helicopters

Cyprus

 * XD184 – HAR.10 on static display at RAF Akrotiri as a gate guardian

Germany

 * XD186 – HAR.10 on static display at Flugausstellung Hermeskeil in Hermeskeil, Rhineland-Palatinate.
 * XP352 – HAR.10 on static display at Flugausstellung Hermeskeil in Hermeskeil, Rhineland-Palatinate.

Netherlands

 * XG576 – HAR.3 on static display at PS Aero in Baarlo, Limburg.

United Kingdom

 * G-ANFH Sir Ector Series 1 on static display at The Helicopter Museum in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset
 * WA.113 – Series 3 on static display at The Helicopter Museum in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.
 * WA.298 – Series 3 on static display at the Midland Air Museum in Baginton, Warwickshire.
 * WV198 – HAR.21 on static display at the Solway Aviation Museum in Crosby-on-Eden, Cumbria.
 * XA864 – HAR.1 in storage at the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovil, Somerset.
 * XA870 – HAR.1 on static display at the South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Owned by the Yorkshire Helicopter Preservation Group.
 * XD163 – HAR.10 on static display at The Helicopter Museum in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.
 * XG574 – HAR.3 on display at the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovil, Somerset.
 * XG588 – Series 3 on static display at East Midlands Aeropark in Castle Donington, Leicestershire.
 * XG594 – HAS.7 in storage at the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovil, Somerset.
 * XJ398 – HAR.10 on static display at the South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Owned by the Yorkshire Helicopter Preservation Group.
 * XJ723 – HAR.10 on static display at Morayvia in Kinloss, Moray.
 * XJ726 – HAR.10 on static display at Caernarfon Airworld Museum in Dinas Dinlle, Gwynedd.
 * XJ729 – HAR.10 airworthy with Historic Helicopters in Crewkerne, Somerset.
 * XK936 – HAS.7 on static display at the Imperial War Museum Duxford in Duxford, Cambridgeshire.
 * XK940 – HAS.7 on static display at The Helicopter Museum in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.
 * XL853 – HAS.7 in storage at the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovil, Somerset.
 * XL875 – HAR.9 at Air Service Training in Perth.
 * XN258 – HAR.9 on static display at the North East Land, Sea and Air Museums in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear.
 * XN304 – HAS.7 on static display at the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum in Flixton, Suffolk.
 * XN380 – HAS.7 under restoration for static display at the RAF Manston History Museum in Ramsgate, Kent.
 * XN386 – HAS.9 on static display at the South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Owned by the Yorkshire Helicopter Preservation Group.
 * XP299 – HAR.10 on static display at the Royal Air Force Museum London in London.
 * XP345 – HAR.10 on static display at the South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Owned by the Yorkshire Helicopter Preservation Group.
 * XP346 – HAR.10 on static display at All Things Wild in Evesham, Worcestershire.
 * XP355 – HAR.10 on static display at the City of Norwich Aviation Museum in Horsham St Faith, Norfolk.
 * XR453 – HAR.10 on static display at RAF Odiham in Odiham, Hampshire.
 * XR485 – HAR.10 on static display at the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum in Flixton, Suffolk.
 * XR486 – HCC.12 on static display at The Helicopter Museum in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.

In popular culture
In the Beatles first film, A Hard Day's Night, the group is seen flying away from the concert venue at the end of the film on the BEA Whirlwind, G-ANFH. The same aircraft appeared in the 1960 film, The Murderers and the 1963 Oliver Reed film, The Damned.

The character of Harold the Helicopter from The Railway Series and Thomas & Friends is based on a Westland Whirlwind with fitted pontoons.

title: Westland Whirlwind (helicopter)


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Institute of Physics

The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a UK-based not-for-profit learned society and professional body that works to advance physics education, research and application.

It was founded in 1874 and has a worldwide membership of over 20,000. The IOP is the Physical Society for the UK and Ireland and supports physics in education, research and industry. In addition to this, the IOP provides services to its members including careers advice and professional development and grants the professional qualification of Chartered Physicist (CPhys), as well as Chartered Engineer (CEng) as a nominated body of the Engineering Council; it also holds its own separate Royal Charter. The IOP's publishing company, IOP Publishing, publishes 85 academic titles.

History

The Institute of Physics was formed in 1960 from the merger of the Physical Society, founded as the Physical Society of London in 1874, and the Institute of Physics, founded in 1918.

The Physical Society of London had been officially formed on 14 February 1874 by Frederick Guthrie, following the canvassing of opinion of Fellows of the Royal Society by the physicist and parapsychologist Sir William Barrett at the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Bradford in 1873, with John Hall Gladstone as its first president. From its beginning, the society held open meetings and demonstrations and published Proceedings of the Physical Society. Meetings were held every two weeks, mainly at Imperial College London. The first Guthrie lecture, now known as the Faraday Medal and Prize, was delivered in 1914.

In the early part of the 20th century, the profession of "physicist" emerged, partly as a result of the increased demand for scientists during the First World War. In 1917, following discussions between William Eccles and William Duddell, the Council of the Physical Society, along with the Faraday Society, the Optical Society, and the Roentgen Society, started to explore ways of improving the professional status of physicists, and in 1918, the Institute of Physics was created at a meeting of the four societies held at King's College London. In 1919, Sir Richard Glazebrook was elected first president of the institute, and the inaugural meeting of the Institute took place in 1921. As with the Physical Society, dissemination of knowledge was fundamental to the institute, which began publication of the Journal of Scientific Instruments in 1922. The annual Reports on Progress in Physics began in 1934 and is still published today. In 1952, the institute began the "Graduateship" course and examination, which ran until 1984 when the expansion of access to universities removed demand.

In 1932, the Physical Society of London merged with the Optical Society to create the Physical Society. In 1960, the Physical Society and the Institute of Physics merged, creating a single organization with the name The Institute of Physics and the Physical Society, with John Cockcroft elected at its first president. The new society combined the learned society tradition of the Physical Society with the professional body tradition of the Institute of Physics. Under the leadership of Thomas E. Nevin, an Irish branch of the Institute of Physics was formed in 1964. Upon being granted a royal charter in 1970, the organization was renamed as the Institute of Physics.

Membership
The IOP has 23,000 members split across four grades of membership: Associate Member (AMInstP), Member (entitled to use the postnominals MInstP), Fellow (entitled to use the postnominals FInstP) and Honorary Fellow (entitled to use the postnominals Hon.FInstP). Undergraduates, apprentices and trainees can become Associate Members, and qualification for MInstP is normally by completion of an undergraduate degree that is "recognised" by the institute – this covers almost all UK physics degrees. An MInstP can become an FInstP by making "an outstanding contribution to the profession" that is judged via double-blind and anonymous peer review.

These four grades of membership replaced the previous seven grades in January 2018; these changes introduced removed affiliate memberships for undergraduates (they are now Associate Members), removed the post-nominal letters AMInstP, and made Associate Members voting members. In 2015, the membership of the Institute of Physics was 86% male at MInstP and 91% male at FInstP. 85% of Honorary Fellows were male.

The institute grants academic dress to the various grades of membership. Those who have passed the institute's graduateeship examination (offered 1952–1984) are entitled to a violet damask Oxford burgon-shaped hood. Corporate members (MInstP) are entitled to wear a hood of Toronto full shape in violet damask, lined in violet and faced on the cowl with 2"/5 cm shot crimson silk. The gown for members and those who have passed the graduateship examination is the same pattern as that used by the University of London for their Bachelor of Arts, but with the sleeves loped by violet cords and buttons, the Fellow's gown follows the pattern of the Doctor's robes of Oxford University in black with (according to Groves 2014) 4" cuffs in violet damask, or (according to the IOP website) 15 cm cuffs and 10 cm facings in violet taffeta, the cuffs slightly gathered with red cords and violet buttons. Fellows wear a doctor's bonnet in black velvet with red tassels, other grades wear a standard black mortarboard with black tassels.

Professional qualifications
The institute grants the professional title of Chartered Physicist (CPhys) under its own charter, Chartered Engineer (CEng), Engineering Technician (EngTech), and Incorporated Engineer (IEng) as a nominated body of the Engineering Council, and Registered Scientist (RSci) and Registered Science Technician (RSciTech) as a licensed body of the Science Council. Until 2001, CPhys was granted automatically with MInstP, however since then it has become a separate qualification that is equal in stature to Chartered Engineer. People awarded CPhys since 2012 require re-validation every three years to retain the qualification. In order to gain the CPhys qualification, a physicist must be appropriately qualified (an accredited MSci or MPhys integrated master's degree is standard, although experience leading to an equivalent level can be counted), have had a minimum of two years of structured training and a minimum of two years responsible work experience, have demonstrated a commitment to continuing professional development, and have gained a number of competencies. From 2020, all CPhys holders are required to be professionally active and to submit an annual continuing professional development record.

Education
The IOP accredits undergraduate degrees (BSc/BA and MSci/MPhys) in physics in British and Irish universities. At post-16 level, the IOP developed the 'Advancing Physics' A-level course, in conjunction with the OCR examining board, which is accredited by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. Advancing Physics was sold to Oxford University Press in January 2011. The IOP also developed the Integrated Sciences degree, which is run at four universities in England. The IOP provides an important educational service for secondary schools in the UK. This is the Lab in a Lorry, a mobile laboratory in a large articulated truck. This has three small laboratories where schoolchildren can try out various hands-on experiments, using physics equipment not usually available in the average school laboratory. Sponsorship is provided by EDF Energy and support from the British Science Association. IOP runs the Stimulating Physics Network, aimed at increasing the uptake of physics at A-level, and administers teacher-training scholarships funded by the Department for Education.

In March 2019, the Institute of Physics launched the Bell Burnell Graduate Scholarship Fund with the goal of helping female and black students to become physics researchers. The program is funded by Jocelyn Bell Burnell and provides aid to low-income students as well as those who qualify for refugee status. Bell won the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics in 2018 and donated the entire £2.3 million prize money to launch the fund.

The institute is also interested in the ethical impact of physics, as is witnessed though the Physics and Ethics Education Project.

Policy
The IOP uses its membership as a unique source of impartial scientific expertise and aims to provide evidence-based advice and in-depth analyses of policy questions relating to physics, society and government, either at the invitation of the UK government or through other agencies. It regularly responds to government consultations relating to scientific funding (broadly interpreted), climate change, energy security, education, issues of equity, diversity and inclusion, and research and innovation, among others. It, like other learned societies, is frequently asked to comment on technical policy documents, and provide expert advice where required.

Publishing
IOP Publishing is a wholly owned subsidiary of the IOP that publishes 85 academic titles. Any profits generated by the publishing company are used to fund the charitable activities of the IOP. It won the Queen's Award for Export Achievement in 1990, 1995 and 2000 and publishes a large number of journals, websites and magazines, such as the Physics World membership magazine of the Institute of Physics, which was launched in 1988.

Governance

An elected Council governs and controls the affairs of the institute. The council meets four times a year and has up to 21 members, of whom 18 are elected by members of the institute.

The president is elected by the membership of the institute and serves a term of two years. The current president is Sheila Rowan (2021-2023). The history of the institute, from its founding as the Physical Society of London through to today's institute, has meant that the name of the post held has varied. The CEO since 2012 has been Paul Hardaker.

Coat of arms
The IOP has its own coat of arms, granted in 1994. The arms feature a shield bearing a representation of an atom, and the organisation's motto "Intellegite et explicate" ("Understand and explain"). Presidents of the IOP wear a medal featuring the coat of arms at formal occasions.

Awards
The institute awards numerous prizes to acknowledge contributions to physics research, education and application.

Headquarters

Since its formation, the institute has had its headquarters in London. The early meetings of the Physical Society of London were hosted in South Kensington, until a permanent base was found in Burlington House in 1894. In 1927, the Institute of Physics acquired, rent-free, 1 Lowther Gardens; it was joined there by the Physical Society in 1939. During the Second World War, the institute moved temporarily to the University of Reading. After the war, the institute returned to London, first to 19 Albemarle Street, where it stayed for little over a year, before moving to 47 Belgrave Square in December 1946. The Physical Society continued to be based in Lowther Gardens until 1960. The institute moved to 76 Portland Place in 1996.

In 2013, the IOP bought a property in Kings Cross for use as its new headquarters. This was the source of some controversy, as local residents objected to the design and size of the new building. After an initial approval in February 2015, it took almost ten months of additional negotiation before planning permission was ultimately granted by the Islington Council in December 2015. The IOP moved into this new building 29 October 2018.

title: Institute of Physics


text:
Market Drayton

Market Drayton is a market town and civil parish on the banks of the River Tern in Shropshire, England. It is close to the Cheshire and Staffordshire borders. It is located between the towns of Whitchurch, Wem, Nantwich, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Newport and the city of Stoke on Trent. The town is on the Shropshire Union Canal and bypassed by the A53 road.

Prehistory
"The Devil's Ring and Finger" is a notable site 3 mi from the town at Mucklestone. These are across the county boundary in neighbouring Staffordshire. There are also and several Neolithic standing stones.

Medieval
Drayton is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as a manor in the hundred of Hodnet. It was held by William Pantulf, Lord of Wem, from Roger de Montgomery, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury. Drayton is listed as having five households in 1086, putting it in the smallest 20% of settlements recorded.

Domesday also lists Tyrley, which was the site of a castle later ( 52.9°N, -2.47917°W ).

In 1245 King Henry III granted a charter for a weekly Wednesday market, giving the town its current name. The market is still held every Wednesday. To the south-east near the A529 an 18th-century farmhouse stands on the site of Tyrley Castle, which was probably built soon after 1066 and later rebuilt in stone in the 13th century. Nearby Blore Heath, in Staffordshire, was the site of a battle in 1459 between the Houses of York and Lancaster during the Wars of the Roses. Audley's Cross, Blore Heath is located close by.

Early Modern
Rowland Hill of Soulton, the first Protestant Mayor of London, came from a prominent ancient local family which had extensive property in the area. He is a possible inspiration for Shakespeare and ran the Geneva Bible translation project. He founded the Old Grammar School, in St Mary's Hall, directly to the east of the church in 1555. It contains a 16th century bust of him. To this day a charity exists in the town to support the education of young people.

Elizabeth Wriothesley, Countess of Southampton (1572 – 1655) was a daughter of the prominent local Vernon family. Her husband was the supposed inspiration of part of Shakespeare's sonnets. She was one of the chief ladies-in-waiting to Elizabeth I in the later years of her reign.

Evidence has recently been found for a skirmish in the English Civil War around 1643.

The great fire of Drayton destroyed almost 70% of the town in 1651. It was started at a bakery owned by D. MacTavish, and quickly spread through the timber buildings. The buttercross in the centre of the town still has a bell at the top for people to ring if there was ever another fire.

In the 1730s Robert Clive attended the grammar school, and a school desk with the initials "RC" may still be seen. He was expelled from the school, and his record is today contested.

Culture
The town has an active arts and culture scene mainly based around the Festival Drayton Centre. This centre was established in 1984 and is run by volunteers. Over 40 years it has expanded considerably and includes a thriving cinema, theatre, art gallery and a range of meeting rooms that area available for hire. The Festival Drayton Centre also hosts regular live music and comedy and features event cinema beamed in by satellite from the National Theatre and Royal Opera House.

The Drayton Arts Festival is held every year in October; its 10th anniversary was due in 2023.

Market Drayton has always been a hotbed for musical talent producing a number of bands who have progressed on to achieve national acclaim. In 1981 the town boasted the ‘second best’ school rock band in the country, TSB National School Band runners up, Monovision (Winners were “Mother Hen”). At the same time the local youth club were represented by the Platinum Needles in the NAYC Opportunity Rocks competition final. In early 1981 the Platinum Needles were also featured on the Stoke Musicians Collective album released on Slip Records “Cry Havoc”. During the late ’70s and early ’80s, Market Drayton also boasted one of the only recording studios in Shropshire, Redball Records.

Landmarks in the area include: Pell Wall Hall, Adderley Hall, Buntingsdale Hall, Salisbury Hill, Tyrley Locks on the Shropshire Union Canal and the Thomas Telford designed aqueduct.

Media
Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC West Midlands and ITV Central. Television signals are received from either The Wrekin or Sutton Coldfield TV transmitters.

Local radio stations are BBC Radio Shropshire, Free Radio Black Country & Shropshire, Greatest Hits Radio Black Country & Shropshire, Capital North West and Wales and Pure Gold, a community based radio station.

The Shropshire Star is the town's local weekly newspaper.

Education
Today, Market Drayton has four schools:

 * Longlands Primary School
 * Market Drayton Infant School
 * Market Drayton Junior School
 * Grove School and sixth form college

Grove School is a large secondary school of about 1,100 pupils, all of whom live within 12 mi of the town.

Industry
In 1965, sausage maker Palethorpe's built a new factory employing 400 people in the town. Purchased by Northern Foods in 1990, the company was merged with Bowyers of Trowbridge, Wiltshire and Pork Farms of Nottingham to form Pork Farms Bowyers. The sausage brand was sold in 2001 to Kerry Group, but the factory remains open as the town's largest employer. It produces various meat based and chilled food products, under both the Pork Farms brand and for third parties, including Asda.

Müller Dairy have a factory making yogurts. The town is also the home of Tern Press, a collectible small press publisher of poetry.

Recent developments in the local service industry include the retailers Argos, Wilko and B & M which have all brought new employment to the area. The town is widely considered to be the "Home of Gingerbread". The first recorded mention of gingerbread being baked in the town dates to 1793, although it was probably made earlier, as ginger had been stocked in high street businesses since the 1640s.

Supplied by a water source running under the town, two breweries operated in the town during the early 20th century. In 2000, Steve Nuttall started a microbrewery, Joule's Brewery Ltd, a revival of a previous Joule's Brewery at Stone, Staffordshire which had been discontinued in 1974. The new company bought the 16th century Red Lion, a pub that formerly belonged to the earlier company, where the brewery was built, completed in 2010. It produces three core ales on the site as well as a number of seasonal beers. Fordhall Farm has 140 acre of community-owned organic farmland located off the A53 between the Müller and Tern Hill roundabouts. The farm trail is open to the public during farm shop opening hours, and on the path is the site of Fordhall Castle, an ancient motte and bailey structure which overlooks the River Tern valley.

Sports

 * Market Drayton Hockey Club train & play at Whitcurch Sir John Talbots school, due to a lack of hockey facilities in the town. The club currently had 1 men's team, playing in the Midlands Men's Division 9 North West, along with 1 women's team, who currently play in the Midlands Women's Division 5 Moorland.
 * Market Drayton Town F.C. play on Greenfields Sports Ground in Market Drayton, which has capacity for 1,000 spectators.
 * Market Drayton Rugby club play at Greenfields Sports ground, on Greenfields Lane, and are in the Midlands Division- Midlands 4 West (North).
 * Market Drayton Tennis Club is also based at Greenfields and has three all weather floodlit courts; the club plays in a number of Shropshire leagues.

Road
By road, Market Drayton is served by one major route, the A53 which runs south from Buxton in Derbyshire to Shrewsbury via Leek, Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme.

 * | Southbound: Shrewsbury | Northbound: Newcastle-under-Lyme, Stoke-on-Trent, Leek

Bus
Arriva Midlands operates route 64 through Market Drayton between Shrewsbury and Hanley (Stoke-on-Trent), at an irregular service pattern. Beginning on 7 September 2012 Bennett's Travel Cranberry Ltd run an evening service 164 to Hanley on Fridays and Saturdays with a day service to Newcastle-under-Lyme on Sunday.

Shropshire Council ran a number of bus services under the 'ShropshireLink' brand in addition to the regular 301 and 302 Market Drayton Town Services but these were withdrawn due to council cutbacks. Services 301 and 302 are now operated by Lakeside Coaches.

Railway
Market Drayton had a railway station which opened in 1863 and closed during the Beeching cuts in 1963. The railway station was located on the Wellington and Drayton Railway and Nantwich and Market Drayton Railway of the Great Western Railway network and was also the terminus of the Newcastle-under-Lyme line of the Stoke to Market Drayton Line of the North Staffordshire Railway network.

Climate
Market Drayton was struck by an F1/T3 tornado on 23 November 1981, as part of the record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak on that day.

Religion
The town currently has five churches. The largest is the Church of England parish church which is St Mary's Church; it dates from 1150, although it was largely rebuilt in 1881–1889, and is grade II* listed. Christ Church, an Anglican parish church, is in Little Drayton, to the west of the town and grade II listed.

The Roman Catholic Church of St Thomas Aquinas & St Stephen Harding dates from 1886 and is grade II listed. There is also a Methodist Church.

Notable residents

 * William Felton (1715–1769), English composer
 * Elizabeth Anne Lewis (1843/48-1924), temperance activist
 * Stephen Morrey (1880 – 1921) was an English-born merchant, farmer and political figure in Saskatchewan, Canada. Morrey owned a hardware business in Market Drayton.
 * Thomas Povey, the colonial civil servant and friend of Samuel Pepys, was a Londoner, but a branch of his family lived at Woodseaves, near Market Drayton; the most prominent member of this branch of the family was Sir John Povey (1621–1679), Lord Chief Justice of Ireland 1673–79.
 * Henry Edward George Rope (1880-1978), poet and editor, served as Roman Catholic parish priest at Market Drayton in 1924-1925.

Sport

 * John Lewis (1855–1926), football referee and a founder of Blackburn Rovers F.C., was born at Market Drayton
 * Arthur Morris (born Market Drayton 1882 - 1945), professional footballer, played for Shrewsbury Town and Birmingham City.
 * Harold Emerton Edge (born Market Drayton 1892 – 1944) an English cricketer, a right-handed batsman who bowled medium pace
 * Ken Summers (darts player) (born 1952) now retired, lives in the town
 * David Gilford (born 1965) is an English professional golfer. He lives in the town
 * Andy Cooke (born 1974), former professional footballer played for Burnley, Stoke City and Shrewsbury Town also hails from, and ended his footballing career with, Market Drayton
 * Christopher Flynn (born 1987 in Market Drayton) Wales international professional footballer.
 * Benjamin Jack Garratt (born 1994 in Market Drayton) English professional footballer, played for Crewe Alexandra F.C. 125 times

Robert Clive
Nearby at Styche Hall is the birthplace of Robert Clive, first Baron Clive, "Clive of India", (1725–1774), part of whose schooling was in the Grammar School then in Market Drayton.

The Georgian house, designed by Sir William Chambers, the architect of Somerset House, replaced the half-timbered house where Clive was born. It was built for his father and paid for by Clive from the income from his Indian career.

Twin towns
Market Drayton is twinned with:

title: Market Drayton


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Georges Prêtre

Georges Prêtre (14 August 1924 – 4 January 2017) was a French orchestral and opera conductor.

Biography
Prêtre was born in Waziers (Nord), and attended the Douai Conservatory and then studied harmony under Maurice Duruflé and conducting under André Cluytens among others at the Conservatoire de Paris. Amongst his early musical interests were jazz and trumpet. After graduating, he conducted in a number of small French opera houses sometimes under the pseudonym Georges Dherain. His conducting debut was at the Opéra de Marseille in 1946. He also conducted at the opera houses in Lille and Toulouse. His Paris debut was at the Opéra-Comique in Richard Strauss's Capriccio. He was director of the Opéra-Comique 1955–1959. He conducted at the Lyric Opera of Chicago 1959–1971. He was conductor, 1959, and music director 1970–1971, at the Paris Opéra. He was principal conductor of the Vienna Symphony 1986–1991.

His Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, debut came in 1965, with first appearances at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City, and La Scala, Milan, also coming in the same decade. He worked with Maria Callas on a number of occasions, and made recordings of Carmen and Tosca with her.

Aside from opera, Prêtre was best known for performances of French music, having conducted long and difficult works like Debussy's La mer and Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé without a score (i.e. from memory). He is especially associated with Francis Poulenc, giving the premiere of his opera La voix humaine at the Opéra-Comique in 1959 and the first performance in France of his Sept répons des ténèbres in 1963. In 1999 he gave a series of concerts in Paris to celebrate the centenary of Poulenc's birth. In 1988 Marcel Landowski dedicated his Fourth Symphony to Prêtre. To many music lovers, however, Prêtre's name will forever be associated with the 1959 world premiere of Joseph Jongen's Symphonie Concertante for Organ and Orchestra, Op. 81, with Virgil Fox and the Paris Opera Orchestra. Eclectic musician, he also conducted in Vienna, in 1962, L'Opéra d'Aran by Gilbert Bécaud.

He conducted the La Scala Orchestra in Franco Zeffirelli's 1982 film versions of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci. Both films starred Plácido Domingo. In 2009, at the age of 85, he returned to these two Italian operas in the Roman amphitheater at Orange, for televised performances starring Roberto Alagna.

Prêtre conducted the Vienna New Year's Concert twice, in 2008 and in 2010, the only French conductor to have been appointed for this role.

Prêtre married Gina Marny in 1950, and they had two children (one son, one daughter). Interests included riding, swimming, aviation, judo, and karate.

Prêtre died in France on 4 January 2017, aged 92. He had a home in Navès (Tarn), near Castres.

Awards

 * Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (1982)
 * Grand Officier of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (1991)
 * Europa Prize (1982)
 * Honorary Conductor of the Vienna Symphony (Austria, 1991)
 * Victoire de la Musique Award (for best conductor, 1997)
 * Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class (2004)
 * Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur (France, 2009)

title: Georges Prêtre


text:
Talk:Baptism with the Holy Spirit

Baptism by fire merge
I see no useful purpose for Baptism by fire to exist, separate from Baptism with the Holy Spirit. I propose that any useful content from that article be moved into this one, and that article be turned into a disambiguation page. - 71.223.123.164 (talk) 16:58, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

 * Not the same. See [] for concise description. And I'll let a Mormon explain their position on it. --Musdan77 (talk) 05:33, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

 * Other than the unreferenced first sentence in the lede, which matches the wiktionary definition, the rest of the Baptism by fire article tries to cover the same material as Baptism with the Holy Spirit. That content, if it is seen as valuable, could easily be merged into this article. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 15:11, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

 * I agree with merging at least the History and Mormonism sections into this article. It basically repeats information that is in this article already, while lacking the biblical, historical, comparative context that this article provides. In regard to the History section, it would probably fit in or near the second paragraph of the "Biblical description" section in this article. Ltwin (talk) 01:29, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

 * Support: The passage in Matthew about baptism with spirit and fire is part of the tradition of Christian water baptism, and it is different than the dictionary definition of Baptism by Fire. The fire in view here is the fire of testing.  Justin Martyr quotes from an early gospel passage, related to the Western text of Luke, which mentions a fire on the water concurrent with the Holy Spirit descending like a dove during Jesus' baptism, and the fire of testing is also mentioned in poetic verse in one of the Sibylline oracles in the context of baptism (Sib. VI:1-7 "I sing from the heart of the great Son and famous of the Immortal, to whom the Most High, His begetter, gave a throne to take ere He was born; for according to the flesh He was raised up the second time, after He had washed in the stream of the River Jordan, which is borne along on silvery foot, drawing its waves. Who first, escaping from fire, shall see God coming in sweet Spirit, on the white wings of a dove.").  Ignocrates (talk) 19:08, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

This proposal to merge seems to have died from a lack of interest. Last call for comments, otherwise, this proposal should be closed and the merge template removed. Ignocrates (talk) 16:49, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I propose the following as an alternative: 1. move the sections that relate to Baptism with the Holy Spirit and Mormonism to this article. They can be pasted onto the talk page for now. 2. Stubbify the remaining article on Baptism by Fire and include current and possible future usages of that term that do not relate to this article.  I think that is preferable to an outright deletion with a redirect to this article. Ignocrates (talk) 16:40, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

 * Oppose evidently a discreet subject in Christian literature, irrespective of any Mormon development of the topic. Removing merge tag as stale/unsupported. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:30, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Cathar addition
User:H799646 added the following sub-section entitled "Cathars" to the "Views" section. Given the fact that this is a good article, I thought it appropriate to move this unsourced section here until such time as the original contributor or someone else adds sources. Because the Cathars are a historical movement, I wonder also if this material would be more appropriate in the "History" section?

"Consolamentum was the unique sacrament of the Cathars. According to the Albigenses and other Cathars, the consolamentum was a baptism with the Holy Spirit. It implied reception of all spiritual gifts including absolution from sin, spiritual regeneration, and the power to preach and elevation to a higher plane of perfection. In common with Christianity, Cathars believed in original sin, and, like Gnostics, believed temporal pleasure to be sinful or unwise. The process of living thus inevitably incurred 'regret' that required 'consolation' to move nearer to God or to approach heaven. It occurred only twice in a lifetime: upon confirmation in the faith and upon impending death. It was available to both men and women who made a commitment to the faith.[citation needed] Following the ceremony the consoled individual became a "Cathar Perfect""

Any thoughts? Ltwin (talk) 04:27, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Also, until such time as sources are added, I have added a link to Consolamentum to the "See also" section. Ltwin (talk) 04:56, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Reader feedback: Baptism INTO the Holy Spirit
98.208.162.177 posted this comment on 29 June 2013 (view all feedback).

"A clearer mor eaborate teaching of the baptism INTO the Holy Spirit"

Any thoughts?

Ltwin (talk) 08:03, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Quaker connection
Historically the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) emphasized the Baptism of the Spirit, more so than other protestant traditions. For example this essay: http://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=ccs — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.58.117.246 (talk) 20:45, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

=

title: Talk:Baptism with the Holy Spirit


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Take-Two Interactive

Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in New York City founded by Ryan Brant in September 1993.

The company owns three major publishing labels, Rockstar Games, Zynga and 2K, which operate internal game development studios. Take-Two created the Private Division label to support publishing from independent developers and a internal studio for the label called Intercept Games, that has since been reported to be shut down. The company also formed Ghost Story Games which was a former 2K studio under the name Irrational Games. The company acquired the developers Socialpoint, Playdots and Nordeus to establish itself in the mobile game market. The company also owns 50% of professional esports organization NBA 2K League. Take-Two's combined portfolio includes franchises such as BioShock, Borderlands, Grand Theft Auto, NBA 2K, WWE 2K, and Red Dead among others.

As of September 2023, it is the second-largest publicly traded game company in the Americas and Europe after Electronic Arts, with an estimated market cap of US$23 billion.

1993–2000: Formation and initial growth
Take-Two Interactive was founded by Ryan Ashley Brant, the son of media executive and Interview co-owner Peter Brant. Ryan Brant had attended the Hotchkiss School and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in May 1992. He began his career in May 1991, working for his father as the chief operating officer of Stewart, Tabori & Chang, a publisher of illustrated books, until August 1993. As Brant wanted to forge his own path, he decided to create a video game publishing company. He stated "I wanted to get into a business where I could raise capital as a younger guy. In technology, people expect you to be a younger person." An initial US$1.5 million in funding was raised from his family and private investors. Take-Two was incorporated in Delaware on September 30, 1993, with Brant (21 years old at the time) as chief executive officer (CEO). The business was launched with assistance from John Antinori and Mark Seremet. Seremet sold his stake in the company in 1998. Early on, Take-Two had a location in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. By June 1994, the company had acquired and absorbed InterOptica, a software publisher owned by Wan Chai and headed by Catherine Winchester (later Heald); the latter became Take-Two's first president. Later that month, Take-Two struck a deal with GameTek that would see the publisher distribute five of Take-Two's games worldwide.

Starting with Star Crusader in September 1994, Take-Two found its first major success within games that included full motion video with well-known live actors performing the parts, following the success that Mechadeus had with The Daedalus Encounter which featured Tia Carrere. Take-Two hired Dennis Hopper, among others, to star in parts for Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller (1994), which sold over 300,000 copies over the following year and established profit for the company. This was followed by Ripper (1996), of which US$625,000 of its US$2.5 million budget was used to hire actors such as Christopher Walken, Karen Allen, and Burgess Meredith. The success of both these games, as well as earlier titles, led to a publishing agreement between Take-Two and Acclaim Entertainment to publish Take-Two's titles, as well as obtaining overseas distribution. Take-Two also secured a license with Sony Computer Entertainment to publish on the PlayStation line of consoles. In February 1995, GameTek acquired a stake in Take-Two, aligning the studio with its own Alternative Reality Technologies. By July 1995, Take-Two had established its head office in the Silicon Alley area of New York City. Take-Two expanded in its Latrobe location and, in September 1996, took over the second floor of its office building, which had been occupied by the Chestnut Ridge Chapter of the American Red Cross.

Around 1996, the company was making about US$10 million, but Brant wanted to further expand the company, and made its first acquisition of Mission Studios and publishing its JetFighter III game in 1996. Brant decided to secure additional funds for acquisition by taking the company public. The company announced this intent in April 1997, looking to raise US$8.2 million. The company had its initial public offering (IPO) on April 15, 1997, being listed under the ticker symbol TTWO on the NASDAQ stock exchange. The opening price was US$5.50, above the expected US$5, and on its first day rose to US$5.75. From the IPO, the company gained about US$6.5 million along with US$4 million on venture fund promissory notes. At this time, Peter Brant had been the largest shareholder in Take-Two at 25% owned through Bridgehampton Investors LP, which also had Ryan Brant as general partner. The additional funds allowed Take-Two to acquire GameTek's European operations, its internal Alternative Reality Technologies studio (later renamed Rockstar Toronto), and the rights to GameTek's Dark Colony, The Quivering, The Reap, Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune games. The company hired Kelly Sumner, a GameTek executive director, as part of this purchase. Additionally, the company acquired Inventory Management Systems, Creative Alliance Group, and Alliance Inventory Management, three video game distribution companies that helped to extend Take-Two's reach into the retail market.

In the same year, Take-Two stepped in as the publisher of Monkey Hero. Its developer, Blam!, had been struggling financially after the game's original publisher, BMG Interactive, was shut down by BMG Entertainment (a unit of Bertelsmann), its parent company. In March 1998, Take-Two acquired all assets of BMG Interactive for 1.85 million shares (16% of Take-Two's common stock), worth about US$14.2 million. In the previous year, the United Kingdom-based DMA Design and BMG Entertainment had just released Grand Theft Auto, and while it financially performed well but was not a critical success in Europe, it had sparked controversy over the use of violence in video games, with United States Senator Joe Lieberman speaking out strongly against it. Seeing the opportunity to capture attention on the game, Brant had initiated the acquisition of BMG as to acquire the Grand Theft Auto property, and at the same time, contacted BMG's Sam and Dan Houser (both instrumental to getting Grand Theft Auto to market), Terry Donovan, and Jamie King to found a new label within Take-Two, called Rockstar Games for which to develop more titles like it. Electronic Arts' (EA) 2008 CEO, John Riccitiello, stated that, with the establishing of Rockstar, Take-Two effectively invented the "label" corporate structure, which EA followed into in 2008. With the rights to Grand Theft Auto, Take-Two expanded its publication into North America, and the game became Take-Two's first financial success with over 1.5 million copies sold.

Take-Two also began taking on distribution capabilities, acquiring various distribution firms such as DirectSoft Australia for the Oceania market. Notably, in August 1998, Take-Two acquired Jack of All Games, an America game distributor, for about US$16.8 million. Take-Two subsequently bundled many of its existing and future distribution outlets under the Jack of All Games brand.

In 1999, Take-Two acquired DMA Design (ultimately renamed Rockstar North), and invested into Gathering of Developers and Bungie (eventually transferred over to Microsoft Game Studios). In September, the company also acquired Triad Distributors and Global Star Software, a video game distributor and publisher, respectively, both founded in 1993 by Craig McGauley and Damian Cristiani and operating out of the same offices in Concord, Ontario, with the same management team. Israeli developer Pixel Broadband Studios was acquired for US$50.4 million in March 2000, before Take-Two sold it off to Gameplay.com in October that year, receiving GB£34.1 million in Gameplay.com shares in return.

2001–2006: Further acquisitions and regulatory investigations
In February 2001, Brant stepped down as CEO of Take-Two to serve as its chairman, being replaced in the former role by Sumner. Around this time, the company had 658 employees. With Rockstar, Take-Two invested into developments of sequels to Grand Theft Auto, including Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999), and Grand Theft Auto III (2001) along with sequels, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004). By 2003, Take-Two had revenues exceeding US$1 billion. In 2004, Take-Two paid US$22.3 million to Infogrames for the rights to the Civilization series. The company had also planned to acquire Vivendi Universal Games for US$1 billion.

In 2005, Take-Two began a host of acquisitions, spending more than US$80 million buying game developers. One of its largest acquisitions was for the development studios Visual Concepts and Kush Games from Sega for about US$32 million in January 2005. Both studios had been extensively behind several sports simulation games, branded through ESPN, and typically released updated versions each year, using a 2K brand to differentiate versions (such as ESPN NFL 2K5). In 2004, Take-Two had struck a deal with Sega to help publish these titles. Just prior to Take-Two's acquisition, Electronic Arts announced it had secured the exclusive rights to create video games based on the National Football League (NFL) and a fifteen-year branding deal with ESPN, effectively killing Visual Concepts' own NFL title and devaluing their others games. This decision led Sega to abandon the sports-game market. Take-Two acquired these studios and unique branding (including the 2K brand), as well as negotiated for exclusive rights with Major League Baseball for video games. A day after announcing these acquisitions, Take-Two established their 2K publishing label to maintain the 2K brand, moving several planned games from their budget software label, Global Star, to 2K. Take-Two further realigned the other existing internal studios — Indie Built, Venom Games, PopTop Software and Frog City Software, and Take-Two Licensing — within this new structure.

After the formation of 2K, Take-Two completed other major acquisitions. Firaxis Games was acquired in November 2005 for around US$27 million; Take-Two had already supported the studio by using their acquisition of the Civilization license to support publishing of Civilization IV. Irrational Games was acquired around January 2006 for about US$10 million, including both its Boston and its Canberra studio. At the time Irrational had already established a publishing deal with Take-Two for their upcoming BioShock game. With the deal, Irrational became part of the 2K label. It also acquired PAM Development from the Gaia Capital Group for US$11.4 million, giving them access to the Top Spin series of tennis games.

However, during this period, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) began examining Take-Two's business records, based on complaints filed from 2001 that Take-Two's earnings did not seem to match figures of game sales reported by NPD Group. The SEC's formal complaint found that the company had purportedly sold products to distributors as a "parking transaction" for a quarter, as to artificially increase their revenues for investors, which it estimated was a US$60 million fraud. A lawsuit was filed against Take-Two in December 2001, alleging that the company had lied to shareholders. Take-Two initially restated seven quarters of past financial results in February 2002, then five years in January 2004. Brant stepped down as chairman in March, being succeeded by Richard Roedel. After the SEC's issuance of the complaint in 2005, Take-Two agreed to pay a US$7.5 million fine, along with Brant and other executives paying fines totaling around US$6.4 million. Brant, who had remained with the company in the non-executive role of "Vice President of Production", ultimately resigned from the company in October 2006, following a four-month disability leave due to a bad back.

In 2007, a separate investigation by the SEC found further issues with Brant and two other executives of the company. In an industry-wide sweep against options backdating (receiving shares when they are priced high but backdating their ownership to when they were priced low), the SEC had found Brant had received backdating options of over 2.1 million shares, though he had excised all options upon his 2006 resignation. Brant pleaded guilty to falsifying business records, but agreed to co-operate with the SEC and instead of receiving up to four years in prison, was fined US$7.3 million and barred from holding any "control management positions" in a publicly traded company. Brant died of cardiac arrest in March 2019 at the age of 47.

Further troubling Take-Two during this period was criticism and legal actions taken against the Hot Coffee mod, a user-made modification to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that unlocked a hidden graphic sex scene that was built into the game, with concerned politicians and consumers stating the scene belied the game's ESRB content rating. Actions taken against Take-Two included an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission for deceptive advertising, to which Take-Two and Rockstar settled in 2006 on fines for any future violations of content ratings. Take-Two completed a US$20.1 million settlement related to class-action lawsuits filed against it in 2005 over the Hot Coffee mod, as well as to a class-action lawsuit brought by shareholders over the options backdating fraud, in September 2009.

2007–2008: Shareholder takeover and attempted buy-out
A fire had damaged part of the Take-Two headquarters building in New York in 2006. In early January 2007, Take-Two relocated the headquarters for 2K to Novato, California to 65,000 square feet of space at Hamilton Landing, an office park that had repurposed the former hangar structures from the Hamilton Army Airfield. Later that year in September, Take-Two established a partnership with Nickelodeon and launched a new label, 2K Play, designed for publishing of family-friendly titles alongside 2K's 2K Games and 2K Sports sub-labels, absorbing the remaining publishing duties of the Global Star label. In December 2007, Take-Two established 2K Marin (named after Marin County, where Novato is located) and expanded its presence at Hamilton Landing.

Due to the various SEC investigations and the Hot Coffee controversy, investors in Take-Two discussed the possibility of taking over the company at its next board meeting in March 2007 and oust the current management. There were also issues with Take-Two failing to make its revenue targets, having lost US$163.3 million in 2006. Investors OppenheimerFunds Inc., S.A.C. Capital Management, Tudor Investment Corp., D.E. Shaw Valence Portfolios and ZelnickMedia held 46% of the company's stock at this point, and were looking to put ZelnickMedia's Strauss Zelnick as the chairman of the board while ousting long-standing management and board members. Zelnick had previously been president and CEO of BMG's North American division at the time of the sale of BMG Interactive to Take-Two, a move he had been against, believing that BMG could have capitalized on the video game sector more. Following BMG, Zelnick had been COO of 20th Century Fox and CEO of Crystal Dynamics. He founded ZelnickMedia in 2001 as a private equity firm to focus on media and interactive entertainment investments. Industry analyst Michael Pachter stated that a takeover would be best for Take-Two, as the present management "completely abdicated any responsibility for the oversight of the options-granting policy. A more responsible board would have committed hari-kari." CEO Paul Eibeler, who had replaced Brant after his resignation, had tried to find a buyer for Take-Two after the investors filed their intent with the SEC. Among the potential buyers were EA, but a deal could not be negotiated before the meeting. The takeover was successfully agreed to by stockholders on March 29, 2007, with Zelnick naming Ben Feder, a partner at ZelnickMedia, as the new CEO. , Strauss Zelnick is the largest single shareholder by voting power.

The company announced a major restructuring in mid-2007, following the takeover. With the move of the 2K labels to Novato, the executive, management, distribution and sales areas were evaluated to align these by business discipline rather than geography. Subsequently, the company let go about 5 to 15% of its approximately 2100 employees, closed down some of its European offices and centralizing these in its Geneva location, and looked to get out of the distribution market by looking for buyers of Jack of All Games.

In mid-February 2008, EA made a US$25-per-share all-cash transaction offer worth around US$1.9 billion to the board of Take-Two, subsequently revising it to US$26 per share after being rejected and making the offer known to the public. At the time, Take-Two's stock was valued around US$10 per share. EA CEO John Riccitiello said that EA had previously considered a deal for Take-Two in the previous year when they were approached by Eibeler, however, with Activision's acquisition of Vivendi Games in December 2007, EA was looking to resecure itself as one of the top video game publishers with the acquisition of Take-Two. While Take-Two had been discussing the potential of a buyout to a large media company after the shareholder takeover, Zelnick and the board rejected the offer, with Zelnick stating "We didn't slam the door, we just said look, the price is not right and the time is wrong". Take-Two offered to discuss the offer after Grand Theft Auto IV release on April 29, 2008, which many considered to be the lucrative property that EA desired. An acquisition would have ended EA's main competition in sports video games. EA continued to extend its bid offer throughout 2008, but by September 2008, EA decided to back away and let the offer expire, as Take-Two continued to call EA's cash offer as inadequate.

2008–2018: Continued growth
In September 2008, Take-Two established an outsourcing agreement with Ditan Distribution LLC, at the time owned by Cinram, a Canadian manufacturer of optical media. Through the agreement, Take-Two offloaded all distributing duties from Jack of All Games to Ditan, while establishing the means for Jack of All Games to license and distribute third-party titles. Subsequently, in December 2009, Take-Two sold Jack of All Games to Synnex for about US$43 million, leaving the distribution market and focusing solely on development and publishing.

In 2010, Ben Feder stepped down as CEO, and was replaced by Zelnick, who remains the company's chairman and CEO. In January 2013, while being dissolved, THQ sold the rights of the WWE wrestling games series to Take-Two. Subsequently, 2K Sports has published annual WWE 2K games as part of its lineup.

Around 2013, Take-Two began to repurchase about 7.5 million outstanding shares of the company (about 10%), based on the company's projections that it would remain profitable over the next several years. As part of this, the company bought back around 12 million shares owned by Carl Icahn, about 11% of the total shares, for about US$203 million. Icahn had been seen as favoring selling the company to a buyer. This subsequently led to three board members who had been recommended on the board by Icahn to resign. The move to buy back shares was seen by analysts of the company's assurance in Grand Theft Auto V, which was released in September 2013. Grand Theft Auto V has since sold nearly 100 million units by 2018, making it one of the most successful video games ever and bringing an estimated US$6 billion to Take-Two, increasing its stock value by more than 600%.

In December 2013, former Marvel editor-in-chief Bill Jemas announced that he had joined Take-Two to start a "graphic fiction imprint". The imprint, Double Take Comics, was launched in October 2014, but ultimately was not successful and was shuttered in November 2016. Leslie Benzies, former President of Rockstar North, took sabbatical leave from Rockstar on September 1, 2014. In January 2016 it was announced that he had left the company. On April 12, 2016, Benzies started legal action against Rockstar and Take-Two claiming $150 million in unpaid royalties. Take-Two had invested into mobile-game developer Scopely in July 2016. On February 1, 2017, the company acquired social and mobile game developer Social Point for about US$250 million to enter into the mobile gaming industry.

In that same month, Take-Two and the National Basketball Association (NBA) announced a partnership to create the NBA 2K League, a professional eSports league based on the NBA 2K games, and the first eSports league to be managed by a professional sports league. Teams for the League are to be partially sponsored by existing NBA teams, so that there would be eSports equivalent teams for each of the thirty professional NBA teams. The inaugural season is planned to launch in May 2018.

On May 31, 2017, Take-Two Interactive acquired Kerbal Space Program. Later, Take-Two announced the formation of its Private Division publishing label on December 14, 2017. Private Division was established to fund and publish games by mid-size independent development studios, such as Kerbal Space Program, and had four planned games from separate studios at its launch.

The company completed its move of its New York headquarters from NoHo to more than 61,000 square feet of space in Bryant Park in early 2018. According to Dan Houser, Rockstar Games required to expand in the two companies' shared headquarters and thus asked the Take-Two executives to move. On March 8, 2018, Zelnick attended a White House meeting held by the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump, along with various other attendees involved with the video game industry, and members of Congress, to discuss video game violence in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.

On March 9, 2018, S&P Global announced the addition of Take-Two Interactive to the S&P 500, joining two other major video game publishers EA and Activision Blizzard. Similar to the situation in 2013, Take-Two started buying back around US$308 million of its stock (estimated to be about 2.5% of the outstanding stock), predicated on similar expectations that Red Dead Redemption 2, to be released in October 2018, would similarly boost the company's profits as Grand Theft Auto V had done.

On March 29, 2018, Benzies' litigation against Rockstar and Take-Two suffered a significant setback when the companies succeeded in dismissing 12 out of 18 of his claims, though the court did rule that Benzies "remains entitled to receive certain royalties" as part of his compensation.

Sometime in 2018, Take-Two levied a legal warning against Benzies' new company Royal Circus Games, citing the similarity of its acronym (RCG) to Rockstar Games (RSG) as an infringement of intellectual property; due to this, Benzies later renamed his company Build a Rocket Boy Games in October 2018. Take-Two had also decried their employment of Rockstar North staff as a deceptive tactic to create an affiliation between them.

Take-Two and the NBA signed a seven-year, US$1.1 billion licensing deal to extend Take-Two's rights to develop the NBA 2K games in January 2019. Analysts estimated that this represented at least 15% of Take-Two's revenue from the sale of NBA 2K games, atypical of other license deals, due to the growing popularity of the series.

2019–present: Studio expansions
A then-yet-to-be named studio under the 2K brand in the Silicon Valley region of the San Francisco Bay Area was established by Take-Two in February 2019. The studio is led by Michael Condrey, formerly of Sledgehammer Games and Visceral Games, and was initially working on an unannounced project. A year later, it was announced that the studio would be officially named 31st Union, that it was opening a second studio in Spain, and that it was focusing on "an ambitious and inspired new IP".

On February 7, 2019, Benzies' litigation with Take-Two had officially come to an end. All parties involved in the case successfully executed a confidential settlement, with each agreeing to bear its own costs and expenses, including, without limitation, attorney's fees.

In May 2019, Rockstar Games announced that they had acquired Dhruva Interactive from Starbreeze Studios for $7.9 million, with the sale having been finalized later that same month. The company had been merged into Rockstar India, which added an additional 320 employees to the studio.

In September 2019, Rockstar Games announced that they had released their own game launcher, a digital distribution, digital rights management, multiplayer and communications service.

Take-Two established a new, yet-to-be named studio under Private Division in February 2020, later named Intercept Games, located in Seattle to take on the development of Kerbal Space Program 2. The new studio staff included more than a dozen former members of Star Theory Games who had been working on the title, including Jeremy Ables and Nate Simpson from Star Theory, which had been previously handling the development of the game but outside of Take-Two's structure.

Via 2K Sports, Take-Two established a new publishing agreement with the NFL in March 2020 to start republishing NFL games starting in 2021. While EA's Madden series will coexist and remain the official game of the NFL, while 2K's are called "non-simulation football game experiences" to distinguish from EA's games.

In August 2020, Take-Two announced it was acquiring mobile game developer Playdots (developer of the mobile games Dots, Two Dots and Dots & Co.) for $192 million in cash and stock with the acquisition expected to be completed in Q3 2020.

In October 2020, it was announced that Take-Two had acquired Dundee-based Ruffian Games (known for their work on Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Crackdown 3) after a year-long development partnership on an undisclosed partnership; following the acquisition, Ruffian became part of Rockstar Games as Rockstar Dundee.

Take-Two offered to buyout Codemasters in November 2020 in a deal valued approximately US$973 million. While the offer awaited regulatory approval and was expected to be complete by early 2021, both Take-Two and Codemasters' board of directors confirmed the deal. However, Take-Two's bid was subsequently trumped by Electronic Arts in December 2020, which offered US$1.2 billion (US$7.98 per share), and agreed to acquire Codemasters. Take-Two formally withdrew its offer in January 2021.

The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia acquired 3.9 million shares of Take-Two, valued at US$826 million, in February 2021.

2K acquired HB Studios in March 2021, who previously developed PGA Tour 2K21 and The Golf Club 2019 featuring PGA Tour under 2K Sports' publishing labels. The acquisition includes the rights to the PGA Tour games, which have the official endorsement of the PGA Tour itself. Additionally, 2K announced they had secured a contract with Tiger Woods, who had previously been a key figure for Electronic Arts' PGA Tour series, as an executive director and consultant for future 2K PGA Tour games as well as his likeness for the games. Later that month, 2K acquired the games division of HookBang based in Austin, Texas, which had supported work on the NBA 2K series in the past. The division was relocated to a new Austin location and rebranded as Visual Concepts Austin to continue support for that series.

In June 2021, Take-Two made its largest acquisition to date with the $378 million acquisition of Top Eleven developer Nordeus, further expanding its mobile game division, which, as of July 2021, is known as T2 Mobile Games.

Take-Two Interactive announced its intent to acquire the mobile developer Zynga in January 2022, in a cash-and-stock deal with a value of $12.7 billion, with Take-Two acquiring all outstanding shares of Zynga at $9.86 apiece. The deal was expected to close in June. Take-Two said that the acquisition would help boost its presence in the mobile gaming market, stating "We see tremendous untapped potential to bring Take-Two’s renowned console and PC properties to mobile, a high-priority initiative that will be energized by the addition of Zynga’s leading development, publishing, and live operations teams." Both shareholders of the companies approved the merger on May 19, 2022, and the closing of the transaction took effect on May 23, 2022.

In October 2022, Take-Two announced that Playdots would be shut down, with control of Two Dots being transferred to Zynga.

In March 2023, Take-Two acquired mobile games subscription service GameClub for an undisclosed sum. That same month, Take-Two had layoffs impacting an unspecified number of employees at publishing label Private Division and 30 employees at Firaxis Games.

In March 2024, Take-Two announced that it would acquire The Gearbox Entertainment Company, the parent of Gearbox Software from Embracer Group for $460 million. As part of the deal, Embracer would retain certain studios and titles that were held under Gearbox Entertainment. The acquisition was completed on June 12, 2024.

In April 2024, Take-Two announced it would be laying off 5% of its workforce (579 employees) as part of a cost-reduction program. It also cancelled several unannounced projects.

Company structure
Take-Two's executive offices and worldwide headquarters are located in New York City. The company runs its European operations from Windsor, Berkshire and its Asian operations from Singapore. , Take-Two's primary business is through two self-owned publishing labels. One label is Rockstar Games, also located in New York City, and is specialized on development and publication of action-adventure games such as Grand Theft Auto. The other label is 2K, headquartered in Novato, California, and is composed of its divisions 2K Games, 2K Sports, and 2K Play. The 2K Sports division handles the development and publication of Take-Two's sports simulation games, such as the NBA 2K series. 2K Play covers family-friendly and children's video games produced by Take-Two's studios. 2K Games handles nearly all other production from Take-Two's internal development studios as well as titles from selected third parties (such as the Borderlands series developed by Gearbox Software).

Separately, Take-Two owns Private Division, a label designed to help publish and market games from mid-sized independent developers, such as Squad's Kerbal Space Program. Finally, Take-Two owns Social Point, a developer for the mobile game market. With this structure been in place since 1997–1998, each labels are incorporated principal operating businesses and have a higher degree of autonomy and each with their own infrastructure and resources, management, and profit and loss strategies.

Take-Two has divested itself of its older manufacturing and distribution operations in favor of digital publication and third-party retail distribution. Since 2016, around half of the company's revenues are from digital distribution, whether from digital sales of games through personal computer or consoles, or through video game monetization of its computer, console, and mobile titles.

Other holdings
Take-Two equally shares control of the NBA 2K League, a competitive esports league based on its NBA 2K series, along with the National Basketball Association.

The company has an undisclosed minority interest in Scopely. It had previously held 19.9% interest in Bungie, which it turned over to Microsoft Game Studios on their acquisition in June 2000, in exchange for receiving the rights to Bungie's Myth and Oni IPs, and the license to use the Halo engine to produce two new games. Take-Two also had a 2.3% interest in Twitch, which was bought out upon the service's acquisition by Amazon in 2014, receiving US$22 million from the sale.

Litigation
Take-Two has used trademark dilution complaints to prevent other publishers and developers from registering trademarks comparable to Take-Two's own trademarks, such as blocking trademark registration that involve "rockstar", "bully", "2K", and the capital letter "R". The publisher filed a dispute against Hazelight Studios to block its attempt to trademark It Takes Two, due to the similarity of its name to Take-Two's. Hazelight was forced to abandon the trademark application, making it more difficult to promote the game.

Take-Two has also been active in blocking the release of mods for Grand Theft Auto games. While some of these mods had used assets from the original games and gave valid reason for Take-Two to protect its copyrights, other mods that Take-Two had targeted were made from legal reverse engineering of the game, making Take-Two's claims contentious. Take-Two has clarified that it had no issue with mods intended for single-player games that were legally made, but would take action against other types of mods.

title: Take-Two Interactive