A new Bloomberg report says the Guillemot family and Tencent are exploring options for righting the Ubisoft ship, which could include buying out the company and taking it private.
Sources told the site that both groups have been speaking with advisers about possible ways forward, although it noted that everything is in an early stage at this point and there's no certainty a buyout will occur.
Tencent currently holds just under a 10% share of Ubisoft net voting rights, while the Guillemot family holds around 20%, but the bulk of that share is held through Guillemot Brothers Ltd, a holding company in which Tencent has a 49.9% economic stake, but only 5% voting rights. It's complicated, but here's the report if you want to dive in.
What it all adds up to right now is, frankly, not much: Ubisoft's share price is in the crapper, it needs to do something about it, and at this point there are no bad ideas. Well, there might be one bad idea, at least from the Guillemot perspective: An outright takeover.
In the past, Yves and the fam have steadfastly resisted any attempt to wrest control of Ubisoft from their hands. Several years ago they fought a long and bitter battle with multimedia conglomerate Vivendi, which was attempting a hostile takeover of the company. I thought the Guillemots were hosed but eventually Vivendi threw in the towel—which is when Tencent jumped in.
Tencent paid €66 per share when it made that first investment, and those shares recently hit their lowest price in more than a decade, sinking to under €10. That gives Tencent powerful incentive to move aggressively to turn things around, but the 2022 deal to increase its holding in the company left it with no operational control and limits what it can do directly. That's not an immutable situation, but it does complicate things somewhat for any Tencent ambitions toward a wholesale takeover.
But the report does point toward potentially big things happening in the not-too-distant future. Ubisoft is struggling: Its value has plummeted over the past four years, and its two big guns for 2024 have misfired. Sales of Star Wars Outlaws were "softer than expected," and in September Assassin's Creed Shadows was delayed at the last minute to February 14, 2025, pushing it out of the lucrative holiday season. To help staunch the bleeding, Ubisoft recently announced an internal review of its processes, and confirmed it will make a wholesale return to Steam in 2025 after years of rolling with the Epic Games Store.
But these are relatively minor moves in the grand scheme of things, and at this point it's reasonable to think that investors are looking for more comprehensive structural changes. That, like everything else, is reflected in Ubisoft's share price, which spiked sharply today following the Bloomberg report: A minor bump in the historical context and still below where the price even in August, but at least it's movement in the right direction.
Update: In a statement released on October 7, Ubisoft acknowledged but did not otherwise comment on the speculation. "Ubisoft has noted recent press speculation regarding potential interests around the company," it said. "It regularly reviews all its strategic options in the interest of its stakeholders and will inform the market if and when appropriate.
"The company reiterates that management is currently focused on executing its strategy, centered on two core verticals—Open World Adventures and GaaS-native experiences."
