It’s no secret that French multinational media conglomerate Vivendi has been trying to gain a majority stake in Ubisoft every since a hostile takeover bid was backed by Gameloft in 2016. It’s been an uphill battle for Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, but the scales finally seem to be tipping in their favor.As reported by Bloomberg on September 27th, Vivendi is beginning to have doubts about their takeover. Accord to their sources, Vivendi is incredibly close to hitting the 30% share level that would allow the company to bid for ownership of Ubisoft under french law.
30% threshold law that allows for bid of ownership [1]
But because of Ubisoft’s recent successes in Ghost Recon: Wildlands, Rainbow Six Siege, and the best selling third party game on the Nintendo Switch Mario+Rabbids Kingdom Battle, their share value has skyrocketed, making the French media conglomerate unsure if a hostile takeover is worth it. The success of the company has lead to an increased confidence in current shareholders, making a Vivendi takeover look less and less likely.
Ubisoft stock price (as of 10/6/2017)
The most recent ef
fort by Ubisoft might finally put an end to the Hostile Takeover, announcing a buy back program of 4 million shares by December 29th, 2017. Once these shares are collected by Ubisoft, they will nullified so they no value and thus cannot be reissued on the market. This will further strengthen the hold Ubisoft has on it’s company, putting what I believe is the final blow to the hostile takeover.
I’m genuinely happy that Ubisoft seems to be winning this fight finally, their recent successes has made it very hard not to root for them as company. You cant help but worry that if a huge company like Vivendi, who owns companies like Universal Media Group, Gameloft, and Dailymotion , got their hands on Ubisoft they would ruin what has been making their games so special in recent history. Things are only looking up to with the launch of South Park: The Fractured but Whole only a few weeks away and Assassins Creed: Origins right around the corner as well, this winning streak does not seem to be ending any time soon.
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