There have been several rumors over the past week about a potential buyer for the publisher led by Yves Guillemot, and now Ubisoft has officially responded.
The rumors were that a Chinese tech giant called Tencent could be the new owner of Ubisoft. The company already has a stake in the French publisher and would reportedly buy Ubisoft along with the Guillemot family, which would then go private. According to rumors, this is being discussed with advisors, and the French publisher has now tried to respond to this in a short statement.
Ubisoft wrote that it is constantly evaluating all strategic options in the interest of its shareholders and will inform the market when the time is right. The company then reiterated that management is currently focused on executing its strategy, which is centered around two main verticals (open-world adventure and GaaS-native experiences, or games using live services).
Ubisoft was founded by the Guillemot family, and Tencent is said to want to stabilize the company to increase its value. Ubisoft’s situation is not the best, as its share value has fallen by 19% in the last month, it has postponed Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and we have also heard that sales of Star Wars Outlaws are not strong (1 million last time we reported), despite the time and money that Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment have invested in this game.
Tencent owns 10% of Ubisoft, but 49.9% of Guillemot Brothers Ltd. If Tencent were to take the publisher private, this move would not be so surprising, but in the meantime a new CEO could be appointed and many people would lose their jobs. Recent layoffs have included IT and the special effects studio.
We dare not imagine the state Ubisoft would be in if the last serious contender, the French media giant Vivendi (which was involved in the creation of Activision Blizzard…), had taken over the company after having already taken over Gameloft (which was also linked to the Guillemot brothers).
