Canadian video game developer Ubisoft is reportedly seeking a buyout from a minority shareholder to avoid a hostile takeover, according to internal sources.
Report by Reuters It cited “two people familiar with the matter” who requested anonymity to provide details.
The Guilmo family, Ubisoft's founder and largest shareholder (15%), is said to be in talks with Tencent (9.99%), the company's second-largest shareholder, regarding a takeover plan.
Tencent is a huge multinational media company headquartered in Shenzhen, China. The company owns stakes in more than 30 game companies around the world, and more than a third of studios such as Epic Games and Shift Up. Tencent also wholly owns Los Angeles-based Riot Games, the developer of the hugely popular game League of Legends.
Rumor has it that other minority shareholders, including AJ Investments, are lobbying the founding family to take the company private or sell it to strategic investors.
Gilmots reportedly wants to maintain control of the company, but Tencent has not yet decided whether to increase its stake. Tencent apparently wants its board of directors to have more decision-making authority, including where to allocate its cash flow. Chinese companies are hoping to avoid a hostile takeover by other investors unhappy with the company's falling stock price.
As of this writing, Ubisoft is stock price The stock price has fallen nearly 50% over the past year, falling from about $25 per share in December 2023 to about $13.30 per share in December 2024.
“We completely destroyed this corrupt, gamer-hating studio.”
Ubisoft has been embroiled in controversy for almost the entirety of 2024, which has left very sour tastes in gamers' mouths and even led to poor sales.
The company said earlier this year that in order to move the market toward a focus on subscription-based access, marketing executive Philip Tremblay said consumers needed to get used to not owning video games. Ta.
In April, the developers of Star Wars: Outlaws denounced oppression and inequality in a series of disgusting public statements intended to appeal to progressive audiences. At the time of release, Ubisoft said its sales were “softer than expected'', he admitted that it sold only 1 million copies, which was incredibly low for a magazine. budget Approximately $250 million.
In July, the company's latest game, Assassin's Creed, faced relentless backlash for fabricating the story of a black samurai and making that character the face of the game. Assassin's Creed Shadows is finally delay Until February 2025, amid online outrage.
Game developer Mark Kahn, who has led the movement against forced diversity in video games in recent years, said: called Ubisoft is one of the “most infected'' studios in terms of heartless clichés.
”[They] I tried to get you to like Star Wars: Outlaws, and I tried to embellish that signal with Assassin's Creed: Shadow. ”
Khan added, “You guys fought. We fought too. And now we've completely crushed this corrupt, gamer-hating studio.”
Do you like Blaze News? Avoid censorship and sign up for our newsletter to get articles like this delivered straight to your inbox. Please register here!
