After Vivendi’s takeover of Ubisoft fell through, they still had some shares of the company that they held on to. However, with their bid for Ubisoft now having fallen through, they have sold the remainder of their shares, as they had originally promised. They earned $248.5 million from the sale of the shares, Variety reports, and now are no longer a Ubisoft stakeholder in any capacity.

The sale netted Vivendi a capital gain of €1.2 billion ($1.4 billion). The media conglomerate has noted it will stand by its commitment to refrain from purchasing Ubisoft shares for a period of five years, which means that at least for now, Vivendi gets no stake whatsoever in Ubisoft.

For Ubisoft, this means that the Guillemots, including CEO Yves Guillemot, retain control of the publisher, and, ostensibly, the kind of creative control that has allowed the company to become one of the biggest publishers with the most varied output of games in the industry.

Though it’s mostly a thing of the past now, thanks to Ubisoft working with Tencent to ward it off, at one point, French media conglomerate Vivendi was looking to acquire Ubisoft. They even purchased a significant portion of shares in the company in their attempt to slowly gain a controlling stake.

Of course, now that we know that nothing is going to come of it, it looks like Vivendi is looking to divest itself of its investment. MCV reports that Vivendi plans to sell off all of the Ubisoft shares that it holds — 6.7% of the total — by March 5, 2019, with 0.91% of those sold being sold off on Monday, October 1, and the remainder in March.

For now, this ends that saga. Vivendi may still look at getting an in on the video game market, but it will probably have to pursue other avenues. Meanwhile, Ubisoft at least doesn’t have to deal with the spectre of a looming hostile takeover bid.

For the last few years, Ubisoft has been under the impending shadow of a hostile takeover by French media conglomerate Vivendi. They’ve been doing their best to fight Vivendi off- but for many observers, it has been only a mater of when, not if, for when Ubisoft will ultimately fall to them.

But it seems like that’s not happening- Ubisoft has announced today that it has reached a settlement with Vivendi, with Vivendi releasing all of its over 30 million shares in Ubisoft. The arrangement includes an investment by two new long-term investors, the Relationship Investing arm of Ontario Teachers’ Public Equities division, and Tencent, the Chinese media conglomerate. It also includes a share buy-back by Ubisoft, an acquisition of shares by Guillemot Brothers SE and an Accelerated Bookbuilding with institutional investors.

The partnership with Tencent seems like it will be a long term arrangement with significant benefits for Ubisoft as well, with their games being localized into the Chinese market better and more extensively than they have been so far.

So, the good news is, Ubisoft gets to retain its independence, which will hopefully lead to great games from them continuing to come in the future.

Ubisoft fans and executives had reason to breathe a sigh of relief yesterday, when Vivendi confirmed that it would no longer be pushing to engage in a hostile takeover of the French publisher, something that it has been trying for a few years now.

Ubisoft is one of the better bigger publishers- it is constantly experimenting with new IP, it tries making multiple games across multiple genres, it makes smaller stuff like Rayman and Valiant Heart that other developers wouldn’t touch, it boldly jumps into supporting new platforms and technologies, and it is responsive to player feedback. Sure, it has its own flaws and problems- but it’s far better than most other AAA publishers.

So, seeing that it will get to retain its independence, for the time being, is heartening. That said, Ubisoft has issued to us a statement regarding Vivendi’s intention to back down on acquiring Ubisoft, an they have said they intend to remain vigilant.

“Ubisoft takes note of Vivendi’s statement. We will remain vigilant about their long-term intentions and will continue to pursue our strategy of growth and value creation in the interest of all our shareholders,” they said.

I am, in case you haven’t caught on, extremely happy about this turn of events. I hope Ubisoft continues to innovate and bring us great new games, and I hope they maintain their independence.

Vivendi’s strong attempt to wrest control of Ubisoft in a hostile takeover has been going on for a while now. Though Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has bought more shares to avoid such a situation, he may not have to worry about it after all. Well, not for the next six months at least.

That’s because Vivendi stated in its Q3 fiscal year 2017 report that its investments in games were generating value (Gameloft in particular was touted as the world leader in mobile games download). It noted that the unrealized capital gain on Ubisoft investment exceeded €1 billion but said that within the next six months, “it does not intend to file a public tender offer for Ubisoft shares nor to acquire control of the company. To this end, Vivendi will ensure that its interest in Ubisoft will not exceed the threshold of 30% through the doubling of its voting rights.”

Vivendi also said that with all the opposition from Ubisoft’s management, it will not look to represent on the company’s board of directors either. While this doesn’t mean Vivendi has completely given up its pursuit of Ubisoft, the Paris-based publisher can rest easy for the time being.

Vivendi’s slow, looming takeover of Ubisoft has been a protracted saga, as Ubisoft has fought tooth and nail to prevent a hostile takeover of the company. In the newest round of volleys, Ubisoft’s founding Guillemot family has acquired another 1.75% of the company’s share capital by purchasing slightly more than 2 million shares for an undisclosed price- increasing their total holding in the company to 15.35% (with their voting rights being 20.02%).

In contrast, Vivendi currently owns 27% of the company’s shares, and 24.5% voting rights- so this move was long coming for the Guillemots, too.

“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,” Ubisoft said in a press release.

At this point, Vivendi may end up finding a hostile takeover of Ubisoft to be difficult- its cash holdings have plummeted, and Ubisoft is, of course, making things even harder for them. While acquiring Ubisoft, with its close relationship shared with the three first parties (Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft), as well as lucrative properties, might be well worth it, Vivendi may simply be unable to afford it. I hope that is the case, because more than anything else, I would like for Ubisoft to be able to retain its creative freedom.

It looks like Vivendi has had enough of the slow game- according to new report from Reuters, the French media company will finally abandon all pretense and simply go in for a hostile takeover of Ubisoft this year. Until now, Vivendi has been slowly buying up shares in the company to increase its stake, but Ubisoft has managed to maintain its independence.

That me be about to change with this. According to Reuters’ report, advertising group Havas and Ubisoft are the company’s first targets in its expansion plans. Vivendi apparently wishes to become a European media giant, possibly similar to Bandai in Japan or Disney in North America. It also sounds like it is eyeing some prospective targets for acquisition in the Chinese gaming market.

Vivendi has previously publicly stated that it has no intention of a hostile takeover of Ubisoft- so either something has changed, and the slow burn simply isn’t working out that well for them, or the report is wrong. Reuters very rarely is, so it sounds like Vivendi may have thrown caution to the winds after all. We’ll know soon.

It looks like Ubisoft is in some deep trouble- as of right now, Vivendi own 25.15% of Ubisoft, and 22.92 percent of its voting rights. With regards to the continuing gradual takeover of Ubisoft, going forward, Vivendi said that they are “considering continuing to acquire shares,” but that, “[they are] not considering the launch of a public tender on Ubisoft nor acquiring the control of the company.” They also added that they “continue to seek a recomposition of the Ubisoft Board of Directors in order to, among other things, obtain Board representation consistent with its shareholder position.”

Ubisoft, however, responded with a statement of their own. CEO Yves Guillemot vociferously argued that Vivendi does not deserve representation on Ubisoft’s board. “As you’re well aware, Vivendi claims that their stake in Ubisoft deserves board representation. We have always strongly opposed that claim, on the basis that the many conflicts of interest and their creeping control approach would be negative for our company, our employees and our shareholders,” he said.

This is a mess, and I really hope that this saga resolves itself soon, and in Ubisoft’s favor- for all of their other faults and excesses, they remain one of the most creative AAA publishers in the industry, and I would hate to see them go.

Ubisoft has been fending off a potential hostile takeover by Vivendi which has been buying up more shares in the publisher over the past few months. Speaking to PCGamesN, VP of live operations Anne Blondel noted how the company just “wouldn’t be the same” if it was taken over.

“I know for a fact, having been there for 20 years, that if you [separate] us from our independence, if you take away the way we like taking risks and inventing new stuff, well it’s not going to be the same Ubisoft – for me, it wouldn’t be the same.

“I know what made us so successful for 30 years, is being super independent, being very autonomous.”

Blondel noted the various atypical experiences its created over the years. “Sometimes we take a lot of risks, you think about The Crew, that was a risk. People would look at that like, ‘Maybe it’s not going to work, another racing game, what are you thinking?’ Child of Light, Valiant Hearts, all those kinds of titles.”

At this point Ubisoft is still independent but for how much longer? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Ubisoft has been seeing a bid for a hostile takeover from French media conglomerate Vivendi for a while, now, and Ubisoft’s top brass, including the Guillemot brothers, have been trying their very best to resist and counter Vivendi’s push. They’ve bargained with and lobbied other shareholders, promising incentives and better returns for them should they hold on to their stock- and apparently, they are also increasing their own stake in the company.

Bloomberg reports that the Guillemot family has acquired an additional four million shares worth 144 million euros, bringing their total stake in the publishing giant up by 3.5 per cent. They are also apparently going to lobby shareholders and investors at the Shareholder meeting on September 29, promising better returns should the company be allowed to remain independent.

“We are seeing a race between Vivendi and Guillemot brothers,” Charles-Louis Planade, head of research at Louis Capital Markets – Midcap Partners, said in an e-mail to Bloomberg. “If Vivendi wants Ubisoft, it will have to pay for it.”

Given how relentless Vivendi have been, it will be interesting to see how this all plays out. Me, I am hoping that Ubisoft manage to stay independent. They do bring a unique flavor with them to the industry that would be sorely missed.