Ubisoft was set to publish its second-quarter results yesterday, but postponed and alerted the market that trading in its shares would be halted, at the last second. Ubisoft CFO Frédérick Duguet sent an email to staff, but didn’t provide an explanation for the halt in trading beyond avoiding “unnecessary speculation and market volatility” during the delay.
“Hello everyone, I wanted to let you know that we’re taking extra time to finalize the closing of the semester, and as a result, we will publish our first-half earnings results in the coming days instead of tonight,” he wrote.
“Due to legal regulations, we can’t share more information with you at this time. To limit unnecessary speculation and market volatility during this short delay, we have asked Euronext to suspend the trading of our stock until the results are announced.
“We know this is likely to raise questions and drive media coverage. I encourage you to listen to the conference call – which will be available via the Investor section of our site — just after the results are released so that you have a more detailed view of our earnings.”
This comes following some uncertainty for the company. There’s speculation that Ubisoft could get acquired in some capacity. Earlier this year, there were reports that Ubisoft was seeking backing for new enitity that would house core Ubisoft IP. Tencent and Ubisoft announced a partnership later with a new subsidiary, Vantage Studios, that focuses on Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six.
Tencent owns a 25% stake in Vantage and will act in an advisory role, with final creative and business decisions resting with co-CEOs Christophe Derennes and Carlie Guillemot.
Ubisoft has told staff that it’s shifting towards a less centralized operating model which, they hope, will give teams more ownership of the brands their working on. The concept comes from the idea of ‘Creative Houses’, where teams will have greater control over their franchises and will be able to respond faster to player expectations.