After recent reports of Ubisoft continuing talks of a potential buyout, the company has now announced that advisors will be appointed to look into strategic options, according to CNBC. In a strategic update, the company said that these advisors will explore “transformational strategic and capitalistic options to extract the best value for stakeholders.”
Ubisoft goes into further details about these advisors, stating that the oversight over them will be handled by independent members of its board of directors.
“This process will be overseen by the independent members of the Board of Directors,” said Ubisoft in a statement. “Ubisoft will inform the market in accordance with applicable regulations if and once a transaction materializes.”
Co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot also reiterated the company’s plans to create value from the various franchises and assets owned by Ubisoft. “We are convinced that there are several potential paths to generate value from Ubisoft’s assets and franchises,” he said in a statement.
As a result, the company has also decided to push release date back for Assassin’s Creed Shadows from its originally-planned February 14 date to now March 20. The game is slated for release on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
A report from December indicated that Ubisoft founders and controlling shareholders, the Guillemot family, was in talks with Tencent about a potential buyout of the company. Part of these discussions was the family maintaining its controlling interests over the company after the buyout. Tencent, on the other hand, is reportedly looking for greater control over Ubisoft, including future decisions made by its board of directors.
Talks of the buyout currently seem to be in a stalemate, with Tencent being happy with its 10 percent stake in Ubisoft and waiting for the company to agree to its deal. Guillemot himself is seemingly looking to take the company private by teaming up with minority stakeholder AJ Investments.
In more recent times, Ubisoft has been in hot water with the gaming audience due to a perceived inconsistency in the quality of the games it has released. The studio is hoping that its next major release, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, will help quell these complaints.
For greater context, Assassin’s Creed Shadows was originally set for release back in November. The underwhelming commercial performance of Star Wars Outlaws, however, convinced the company to push the release date further in order to ensure a high quality title.
The company also recently announced that it would be shutting down its free-to-play multiplayer shooter XDefiant, with its servers slated to go offline until June 3. In the mean time, planned content for the game was released, with the game’s final season of content having come out back in December. This update brought, among other things, 3 new playable factions and 13 new maps.
For more details on Ubisoft’s recent releases, check out our review of XDefiant from back when it launched, as well as our review on Star Wars Outlaws.
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