French media giant Vivendi continues to increase its stake in Ubisoft. The company already owns 25% of the developer of the Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry series.
Vivendi announced its acquisition yesterday. In a press release, the company also stated that it was acquiring shares of the Guillemot brothers company based on the market situation.
The latter is safe. From April to September of calendar year 2016, Ubisoft earned €281.4 million. The company’s MAU increased by 43.9% compared to the same indicator a year earlier, and the total figure from sales of digital items, DLC, subscriptions and advertising – by 132.1%. For the entire current fiscal year, Ubisoft plans to earn around $1.6 billion.
Celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, the company, famous for the Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry series, is now proud of the performance of its multiplayer projects. The number of registered users in The Crew, The Division and Rainbow Six Siege is more than 10 million (in each).
So Vivendi’s interest in Ubisoft’s more than 10,000 employees is easy to understand. At the same time, the media giant assures that it does not plan to seize control of the game developer, but is interested in changing the board of directors “in accordance with its position” (or rather, the number of shares owned by it).
In February of this year, Vivendi announced its plans to buy Gameloft after acquiring a 30% stake in the mobile developer. The company, which currently has more than 6 thousand employees, became part of Vivendi by the summer during a hostile takeover. It is possible that history will repeat itself. And in this case, the Guillemot brothers, who founded both Ubisoft and Gameloft, will either have to go out of business, or re-create a gaming company from scratch.
For Vivendi, which created such a giant as Activision Blizzard, but then sold its stake in it, the company Guillemot is an opportunity to return to the gaming market. Plus, one of the channels for the distribution of their own brands.
Source: Vivendi