It has been reported that France’s Guillemot family has raised its stakes in the video game publisher/developer Ubisoft. The report that brings forth the news of Vivendi interest in Ubisoft comes in after a stock market filing was released on Tuesday as part of the ongoing struggle to ward off said company’s interest in Ubisoft.
Según el sitio de publicación Reuters, who published the first piece regarding Vivendi’s interest in Ubisoft back on April 25th, the site has a new follow-up piece that sees a filing from the AMF stock market regulator noting that Ubisoft’s founding Guillemot family now holds 13.6 percent of the publisher/developer’s share capital, and 20.02 percent of its voting rights.
Nevertheless, Vivendi has also been stepping up its stake in Ubisoft, with Vivendi momentarily holding 27 percent of Ubisoft’s share capital and 24.5 percent of the voting rights. In case you don’t know, Vivendi first purchased a stake in Ubisoft back in 2015 and raised it in 2016, sending the Guillemot family to court Canadian investors to ward off any hostile moves.
Looking back to the report that Reuters first published — which should be taken with a grain of salt given that its in-house sources provided the information with no links — noted that a takeover is set to happen sometime this year (end of 2017). The introductory paragraph reads:
"El gigante francés de los medios Vivendi acelerará las adquisiciones en videojuegos y publicidad este año para disipar las preocupaciones de los inversores sobre su estrategia, sus resultados mixtos y el pobre desempeño de sus acciones. dos fuentes cercanas al asunto dijeron a Reuters."
Still looking back to the first piece that Reuters published, the site followed the above by saying that…
"Se espera que el grupo publicitario Havas y el fabricante de videojuegos Ubisoft sean los primeros objetivos a medida que Vivendi avanza hacia la siguiente fase de su expansión, dijeron las fuentes".
According to the publication site, Vivendi will not only attempt to acquire Ubisoft but also advertising group Havas too.
As of recent, Ubisoft shares managed to hit a record high during the beginning of this week, but not too long afterwards were down 2.2 percent in early session trading. However, the publication site noted that the stock is still up by around 50 percent since the start of 2017.
I know I mentioned this last time when the first report popped up regarding Vivendi and Ubisoft, but do you think that Ubisoft will turn for better or for worse if Vivendi’s acquisition manifests later this year?
