The Guillemot family acquired 1.75% of Ubisoft shares for an estimated €112.5 million. The purchase brought the ownership stake of Ubisoft by the Guillemot family to 15.35%, which gives it 20.02% of the shareholders’ votes.
Thus, Giiimo hopes to prevent the takeover of Ubisoft by the French media giant Vivendi.
At the same time, Vivendi owns 27% of the company and 24.5% of the votes.
The battle for Ubisoft between the Guillemot brothers and Vivendi has been going on for years. According to Reuters, the media corporation needs about $6 billion to win this fight unconditionally.
This may become an impossible task for Vivendi — as of March 2017, the company’s net cash flow amounted to $540.3 million, having decreased by 1253% from $7.3 billion over two years.
The acquisition of Ubisoft will allow Vivendi to receive steady cash flows from Ubisoft’s gaming franchises.
According to the results of the last financial year, Ubisoft received 17% of all revenue from digital sales of game content — $273.7 million. According to the plan for the 2019 fiscal year, Ubisoft expects to bring this value to 25% of total revenue, which in the future will bring $584.1 million.
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