Things haven’t been going so well for Ubisoft lately. Not only have they seen a significant player drop in their highly anticipated online, hack and slash fighter For Honor, but the company has been facing potential hostile takeover from French media corporation Vivendi for several months now. However, according to a recent report from Reuters, the Guillemots (Ubisoft’s founding family) have raised their stakes in the company in an effort to ward off rival Vivendi.
According to a released stock market filing, the Guillemot family now holds 13.6 percent of Ubisoft’s share capital and 20.02 percent of the company’s voting rights. Its certainly an improvement over the 9 percent share capital they held a year ago, but it might not be enough. Vivendi has also been raising its stake in Ubisoft, and the mass media conglomerate currently holds 27 percent of Ubisoft’s share capital and 24.5 percent of the voting rights. If the Guillemots want to hold on to Ubisoft, they’re going to need all the help they can get.
Vivendi, the former owner of Blizzard, first bought a stake of 6.6 percent in Ubisoft back in October 2015, as they were looking for new game publisher properties and apparently wanted a slice of that Assassin’s Creed pie. When they raised their stake in 2016, the Guillemot family sought help from Canadian investors and even the government to prevent a hostile takeover. The Guillemots have also repeatedly rejected the idea of making any deals with Vivendi.
On the business side of things, though, Ubisoft seems to be doing pretty well, as the stock has been up 50 percent since the start of the year. Looks like hostile takeovers and significant player loss might actually be good for the company.