Vivendi sells all its Ubisoft shares for two billion euros

Spread the love

Media conglomerate Vivendi has sold all of its Ubisoft shares. The company owned 27 percent of the shares and attempted a hostile takeover last year. Those plans have now been shelved.

Vivendi sells its more than thirty million Ubisoft shares for 66 euros each. This involves a value of more than two billion euros. Ubisoft will buy a third of the shares and a smaller share will go to the Guillemot family, which founded Ubisoft. Chinese internet giant Tencent buys more than five million shares and thereby acquires five percent of Ubisoft.

In addition, Ubisoft is announcing a partnership with Tencent to help Ubisoft gain a foothold in the Chinese market. By taking a stake in Ubisoft, Tencent is strengthening its grip on the gaming market. The company owns Riot Games, the creator of League of Legends. It is also the operator of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds in China and the mobile version of that game. In addition, Tencent owns 49 percent of Epic Games; the studio behind the currently hugely popular Fortnite.

Now that Vivendi has sold all of its Ubisoft stock, a hostile takeover is out of the way. The French media conglomerate tried to gain a majority and Ubisoft tried to avert that by finding new investors. At the end of last year, however, it emerged that Vivendi was abandoning its efforts because it did not have the financial resources for a takeover.

It is the second time that Vivendi has lost its stake in a major game publisher. Until 2013, the French media company had a majority stake in Activision Blizzard, but that publisher bought itself out.

Far Cry 5, one of the latest Ubisoft games

You might also like