Following the rumours that Tencent and the Guillemot family were looking into ways to “stabilise Ubisoft and bolster its value”, the company has responded to the possible buyout report. These buyout reports suggested that Ubisoft was looking to take the company private following poor sales of Star Wars Outlaws and the recent Assassin’s Creed Shadows delay.
Ubisoft now says that it “regularly reviews all its strategic options in the interest of its stakeholders and will inform the market if and when appropriate.” This statement kind of confirms the report but at the same time, makes it sound like it is a common occurrence for the company to look into possible buyouts over time.
Tencent currently owns a 10% stake in Ubisoft but also owns 49.9% of Guillemot Brothers Ltd. It is unclear how much of a deciding factor Tencent has in the buyout but the report makes it sound like the Guillemot family has pulled in the Chinese gaming giant to consider a buyout.
Ubisoft’s value dropped by 19% last month following the news of the Assassin’s Creed Shadows delay. The company’s value as a whole is less than half of what it was five years ago. This comes following multiple delays and cancellations at the company over the past few years. Ubisoft has closed down multiple free-to-play games and at the same time, cancelled multiple projects well into development.
Not to mention the Skull and Bones fiasco that saw the game in development for eight years. The game was reportedly revamped multiple times during its development cycle and suffered four delays. The delays and poor game performance recently led to the Ubisoft board launching an investigation into the company too.
If anything does happen at Ubisoft, I am sure we will hear about it in a timely manner.
Source: Ubisoft