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Reuters: Ubisoft shareholders in talks over possible buyout terms, sources say

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Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
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  • Guillemot family seen wanting to retain control in buyout
  • Tencent undecided on increasing stake
  • Minority shareholders push for sale amid stock decline
  • Ubisoft shares jump 16% after report
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LONDON/HONG KONG, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Shareholders of Ubisoft Entertainment SA (UBIP.PA), are considering how to structure a possible buyout of the Assassin's Creed video game maker without reducing the founding family's control, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The Guillemot family, which is the largest and founding shareholder, has been in talks with Tencent (0700.HK), and other investors in recent weeks about funding a management-led buyout of France's largest video games maker, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

However, the Guillemot family has indicated it would like to retain the control it has over the company, which also makes Just Dance, Far Cry and Tom Clancy's video game series, as part of a deal, the people said.
Tencent, currently the second-largest shareholder in Ubisoft and China's biggest social network and gaming firm, has yet to decide whether to participate in the buyout and increase its stake in the company, one of the people said.
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This is partly because it has asked for a greater say on future board decisions including cash flow distribution in return for financing the deal, which has not been agreed upon with the Guillemot family, the person added.
Discussions between the two parties are ongoing as Tencent also wants to prevent any potential hostile takeover of Ubisoft by other investors, said the person, adding that Tencent's plan is to remain patient and wait for the founding family to agree to a deal.

Tencent may opt not to increase its stake in Ubisoft, as it considers its current direct holding of almost 10% in Ubisoft sufficient for maintaining its gaming business cooperation with the company, the person added.
Tencent declined to comment. A representative of the Guillemot family did not respond to requests for comment.
"We remain committed to making decisions in the best interests of all of our stakeholders" a spokesman for Ubisoft said. "In this context, as we have already indicated, the Company is also reviewing all its strategic options."
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In October, Ubisoft said it regularly reviewed "all its strategic options", but declined further comment on a report of buyout interest.
Shares in Ubisoft rose as much as 16% after the Reuters report. Its shares were trading up 12.1% at 13.2 euros by 1445 GMT.
The buyout talks come as some minority shareholders including AJ Investments have been pushing for either a take-private or a sale of Ubisoft to a strategic investor amid the stock price plunge, Reuters previously reported.
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The company's shares fell to their lowest level in the last decade in September after it cut its outlook on weaker-than-expected sales and postponed the launch of "Assassin’s Creed Shadows" title.
This week it announced it would discontinue development of its gaming title XDefiant and as a consequence close its production studios in San Francisco and Osaka, and ramp down production in Sydney.
Ubisoft is run by the Guillemot family, which owns 15% of the firm, followed by Tencent which owns just under 10%, according to LSEG data.
The family held about 20.5% of Ubisoft's net voting rights while Tencent owned 9.2% as of the end of April, as per the firm's latest annual report.
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StreetsofBeige

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Considering how bad the games (and sales) are lately, good luck trying to offload the company and the family still controls ownership of it.

Any company wanting UBI surely would prefer to buy it all out and have full control.

What Yves and gang want isnt even a buyout, but simply more institutional ownership to prop up the stock, while still manning the ship.
 
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cinnamonandgravy

cinnamonandgravy

Member
"We remain committed to making decisions in the best interests of all of our stakeholders" a spokesman for Ubisoft said. "In this context, as we have already indicated, the Company is also reviewing all its strategic options."
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i want to say "just make good games" and that solves all your problems... but it's probably that they hired a ton of retards and dont know how get rid of them without being sued.

perhaps they dont even know how to identify them.
 
Loomy

Loomy

Thinks Microaggressions are Real
However, the Guillemot family has indicated it would like to retain the control it has over the company, which also makes Just Dance, Far Cry and Tom Clancy's video game series, as part of a deal, the people said.
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Props to them for wanting to keep running the business, but they have to see that they're running it into the ground. Right?
 
laynelane

laynelane

Member
Allowing the Guillemot family to retain control would mean having faith in their leadership. That's a tall ask considering how far the company has fallen. I would say anyone agreeing to those terms is foolish, but it will be interesting to see if they get any takers nonetheless.
 
Ogbert

Ogbert

Member
As an aside.

Playing the The Division one again. Fucking brilliant game. The snowy atmosphere is absolutely incredible.

How in God’s name did Massive fuck up Star Wars so bad? They could have taken the same snow engine, set the game on Hoth, and just reskinned the Division with lasers and Bounty Hunter weapons. Endless grind.

Would have made billions.
 
E

Elios83

Member
The Guillemot are the reason behind the current situation.
Not sure how they can expect other investors to leave them in charge.
They'll sink with the company with this attitude, it's already super hard to turn things around when it takes 4-5 years to deliver a product from the moment you have taken some good business decisions.
 
Iced Arcade

Iced Arcade

Member
Zacfoldor said:
Why is the Guillemot family so insistent on keeping their control over the company? It is political or what? Do they like Just Dance that freaking much?

How bout we sell Ubisoft without the Guillemot family because I'm starting to worry they are the problem.
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probably because it is a family-created business.
 
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ProtoByte

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
Zacfoldor said:
Why is the Guillemot family so insistent on keeping their control over the company? It is political or what? Do they like Just Dance that freaking much?

How bout we sell Ubisoft without the Guillemot family because I'm starting to worry they are the problem.
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Imagine that, a family that built a large company wants to keep it under their name and control. Lmao
 
Iced Arcade

Iced Arcade

Member
curious to know if this was expected for a while and they made a deal with MS for Activision streaming rights knowing MS would get the rights back anyway after a buyout. (usually, rights get diverted back when a company is sold).


seems shady
 
N

Neilg

Member
Clear said:
I get the distinct impression any buyer would have to aggressively clean house to make Ubi worthwhile. They have some talent, some decent tech and IP, but its obvious that the rot's been set in for a long while and its spread real deep.
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Yeah you'd need something huge like a 30%+ global staff layoff. the morale hit would make the people that only just made the cut a bit useless for a while too. It would be a particularly brutal path to profit for them.
 
E

EN250

Member
Aren't The Guillemout responsible for the trash that's Ubislop now? They want to tear it all down before anyone else or something?

I really don't understand people with m/billions in the bank, they just want to burn cash apparently
 
Alebrije

Alebrije

Member
Ogbert said:
As an aside.

Playing the The Division one again. Fucking brilliant game. The snowy atmosphere is absolutely incredible.

How in God’s name did Massive fuck up Star Wars so bad? They could have taken the same snow engine, set the game on Hoth, and just reskinned the Division with lasers and Bounty Hunter weapons. Endless grind.

Would have made billions.
Click to expand...
Just imagine the money they could have if instead of SW crap we got Division 3. It's an epic fail.

If someone want to Buy UBI is for the IPs not the people running currently the company, they need to left UBI, otherwise is going to Oblivion.

When was The last time a UBI Game won GOTY?
 
LordCBH

LordCBH

Member
Tencent couldn’t run Ubisoft any worse than Ubisoft already runs Ubisoft. But I’m loathe to see a fucking Chinese company get it.


That said, no one should be willing to take it if part of the terms are the idiots in charge of Ubisoft now still get to run it.
 
Meicyn

Meicyn

Gold Member
Ogbert said:
As an aside.

Playing the The Division one again. Fucking brilliant game. The snowy atmosphere is absolutely incredible.

How in God’s name did Massive fuck up Star Wars so bad? They could have taken the same snow engine, set the game on Hoth, and just reskinned the Division with lasers and Bounty Hunter weapons. Endless grind.

Would have made billions.
Click to expand...
If it’s any consolation, Ubisoft has now given Massive the reigns to return to The Division, as a third entry is in full production right now. Division 2 was left on life support, but it is getting new DLC that is shipping in March because the playerbase stuck around despite Ubisoft chasing trends. Putting Massive on Avatar and Star Wars was fucking stupid since they wouldn’t have full creative control, and it reflects in the final products.

Just to emphasize, Division 2 is still making money and is on a resurgence while products like Xdefiant are closing up, and Ubisoft has realized they should have never abandoned the IP. Heartland was scrapped because they couldn’t figure out how to make it work as a standalone product, which is funny because it was originally just going to be a game mode in Division 2 kind of like how Survival was a mode in Division 1. Such a waste.

Wonder if Red Storm is going to be back as a support studio for Massive…
 
Burning Blade

Burning Blade

Member
“We remain committed to making decisions in the best interest of all of our stakeholders.” The use of the term stakeholders instead of shareholders is a troubling reminder that Ubisoft is an activist company first, and plans to keep pushing out this DEI trash until it torpedoes itself into oblivion. Shame. Ubi had some fucking fantastic games back in the day.
 
phant0m

phant0m

Member
Ogbert said:
As an aside.

Playing the The Division one again. Fucking brilliant game. The snowy atmosphere is absolutely incredible.

How in God’s name did Massive fuck up Star Wars so bad? They could have taken the same snow engine, set the game on Hoth, and just reskinned the Division with lasers and Bounty Hunter weapons. Endless grind.

Would have made billions.
Click to expand...

So, they didn't. Not from a Star Wars perspective at least. If you think about the actual movies, Star Wars has never been about the hero(es) blasting through dozens of baddies, it's lightsaber fights and some tense gunfights where the heroes might take out a couple and are usually fleeing. I think they did a brilliant job capturing the feel of a Han Solo-like character that's smuggling things around the galaxy for the Hutts and other gangs and largely avoiding the Empire as much as possible.

But I had to get it out of my head that it was going to be Division w/ a Star Wars skin. Would that have been fun? Yeah, probably. But I think the game they made actually fits the SW universe and lore better than a 3rd person shooter with gear score.

Anywho, still pretty wild how far Ubi has fallen. As much as I liked SW Outlaws, so much of their other output in the last 3-4 years absolutely pales in comparison to a decade ago. They were the kings of AAA games with AC, Far Cry, Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, Prince of Persia.
 
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StreetsofBeige

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Tal Shiar Agent said:
Last thing we need is more Chinese influence over the games industry.
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Why?

If Chinese game makers make good games what's wrong with that?

Unless people have a notion a Chinese game company is going to do some stereotyped corporate spying or secretly raiding people's email boxes or something.
 
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