Ubisoft’s founding Guillemot family has taken drastic steps in order to ward off an imposing hostile takeover from mass media conglomerate Vivendi, which currently owns 27% of Ubisoft‘s share capital, and 25% of its voting rights (as of June). After this buyback, the Guillemot family owns a little over 15% of Ubisoft’s share capital. This was disclosed in a press release sent out early this morning which reads:
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“Ubisoft has been informed that Guillemot Brothers SE and a bank have entered today into an agreement related to the purchase by Guillemot Brothers SE of a maximum number of 2,000,016 shares of Ubisoft representing c. 1.75% of the share capital of Ubisoft,”
So the Guillemot brothers have spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $135 million in order to take back a bigger chunk of the company that they founded. This is likely due to the growing threat of a hostile Vivendi takeover. Vivendi has been gobbling up shares and courting shareholders in an attempt to secure a dominant allocation of voting rights in Ubisoft, which would essentially wrest creative controls from the Guillemots and put it into the hands of a faceless conglomerate which would only care about seeing more dollar signs.
I don’t think we need to tell you guys why that would be bad, right? Ubisoft is a bastion of creativity and grit in the industry right now. I can’t think of any publisher, Nintendo excepted, that takes bigger risks than Ubisoft. Its output is truly exceptional and unique. Consider For Honor, Rainbow Six Siege, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, The Crew 2, Assassin’s Creed Origins, Just Dance, and South Park: The Fractured But Whole, and ask yourself whether you can think of another publisher offering more variety than Ubisoft right now.
If Vivendi were in charge, Ubisoft’s output could very likely adhere to a more by-the-numbers approach, opting to only fund and produce games that were guaranteed to feed the bottom line. We don’t want that. We want to know that happy, creative, passionate people are sitting on top of the pyramid. We like faces, not business cards, and that’s why we want Vivendi to stay away from Ubisoft. Here’s hoping they can continue to ward off the takeover.
(via TweakTown)
