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.
