The French publisher doesn’t have the fellow French media giant (previously responsible for the creation of Activision Blizzard) behind it anymore… but another major company stood behind Ubisoft, though.
In the past years, we kept an eye on the Ubisoft–Vivendi duel. Vivendi slowly but steadily started to gain more and more stake in the company, and they even took over Gameloft, Ubisoft’s mobile-focused sister company.
Yves Guillemot, Ubisoft’s CEO, has struck a deal with Vivendi about splitting their shares: some of them will go to the Guillemot family (raising their shares to 18.5%), another portion will be re-acquired by Ubisoft, but two „long-term investors” will also gain some. They are called Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and Tencent. The former doesn’t worth a mention (they did get 3.4% of the stocks, though), but we have to discuss a paragraph about the latter…
Simply put, Tencent is one of the biggest companies in China. They have their own social media platforms, instant messenger systems (Weibo, QQ), and even gamers might be familiar with the name: they are behind the mobile ports of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, as well as the Chinese publishing rights. That’s not all: they own Riot Games (League of Legends!), have a stake in Epic (Unreal Engine!), and in July, they also bought some stakes from Frontier Developments (Elite: Dangerous, Planet Coaster!). Now, they have roughly 5% of Ubisoft‘s stocks, and, according to a press release, it will „significantly accelerate the reach of Ubisoft franchises in China in the coming years.”
Ubisoft is also celebrating on Twitter. What will their future be without the shadow of Vivendi hovering over them? We don’t know the answer yet. However, Tencent now gained a foothold in another company…
To all our passionate players, fantastic partners and amazing teams around the world, thanks for all your support! ? #WeAreUbisoft pic.twitter.com/WGmmIDOweY
— Ubisoft (@Ubisoft) March 20, 2018
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