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.
