Chinese tech firm Tencent has increased its stake in the holding company that owns most private Ubisoft stock with a nearly 300 million euro purchase. Originally acquiring a 5% stake in Ubisoft in 2018, Tencent now owns a stake both in the Guillemot Brothers Limited holding company and Ubisoft proper that amounts to about 11% of total shares. Some 80% of shares are held by the public.

The holding company (Guillemot Brothers Limited) is still owned primarily by the Guillemot brothers, and partially owned by cofounder and current CEO of Ubisoft, Yves Guillemot. Tencent now holds a 49.9% stake in that company, as well as servicing a loan for a long-term refinancing of its internal debt. Despite this recent purchase and other financial ties, the Guillemot family has stressed that this is not a takeover, and overall Tencent will only command 5% voting rights in the holding company.

Year on year Tencent stock is down some 40%, and Ubisoft stock some 30%. As Tencent tries to recover from internal market limits on videogame consumption among young adults and children, it has sped up its acquisition in foreign firms and now holds stakes in Riot Games, Epic Games, Activision Blizzard and recently an investment in FromSoftware.

Source

 

[tofino]

this is either gonna go badly or really badly

 

[MikaDubbz]

Ubisoft was toeing the microtransaction line better than most AAA devs (though they still had plenty of their own issues in that space regardless), this move I fear will quickly put them right up there with the worst of them, alongside EA, Take Two, and Activision.

 

[Athan17]

well idc, i hate them both anyway

 

[RAHelllord]

I haven't finished a modern Ubisoft game in about 10 years and the last ones I've touched (Watch Dogs when it came out and Fenyx Rising whatever) I've just uninstalled after about 10 minutes because they were both as bland as I expected them to be.

So, good for tencent I suppose?

 

[Nincompoopdo]

Well, we are definitely going to see Assassin's Creed in China now.

 

[K3Nv2]

Given that the company is worth 5bn this is nothing.

 

[x65943]

Given that the company is worth 5bn this is nothing.

That's the price for all stock including publicly held stock

The holding company only owns about 15% of the total company stock, or in terms of portions of that 5 billion - $750 million

a 300 million acquisition is a large chunk of that - although Tencent actually paid a 2:1 premium which means they only got 150 million worth of that just now

But even so the literal founding group only has 15% of stock, and Tencent owns half of that now - so ~7%, on top of the some ~4% they hold in direct stocks. Meaning at this point Tencent should be the largest single holder of stock

And additionally Tencent reserved the right to increase their independent stock to nearly 10%, so we could be looking at Tencent owning ~17% of all Ubisoft stock AND half of the holding company

In other words, this is pretty significant no matter how much they try to downplay it

 

[K3Nv2]

That's the price for all stock including publicly held stock

The holding company only owns about 15% of the total company stock, or in terms of portions of that 5 billion - $750 million

a 300 million acquisition is a large chunk of that - although Tencent actually paid a 2:1 premium which means they only got 150 million worth of that just now

But even so the literal founding group only has 15% of stock, and Tencent owns half of that now - so ~7%, on top of the some ~4% they hold in direct stocks. Meaning at this point Tencent should be the largest single holder of stock

And additionally Tencent reserved the right to increase their independent stock to nearly 10%, so we could be looking at Tencent owning ~17% of all Ubisoft stock AND half of the holding company

In other words, this is pretty significant no matter how much they try to downplay it

Given just how powerful Ubisoft is I'm sure they could still have enough in the bank to get out of the deal if they ever saw it going south. We never know the fine details behind the scenes theirs a loophole for everything.

 

[x65943]

Given just how powerful Ubisoft is I'm sure they could still have enough in the bank to get out of the deal if they ever saw it going south. We never know the fine details behind the scenes theirs a loophole for everything.

Not only does the Guillemot group own less of the company than Tencent - Tencent also is handling the group's long term loan refinancing

Tencent has a stranglehold on them, and the only way to get more stock than Tencent at this point would be to buy it from the public at market price. Considering they are in debt, their stock is falling, and Tencent is worth 600x more than all of the Ubisoft stock combined - I think this is likely the end of an independent Ubisoft (despite whatever the family says)

 

[Lodad]

It's like a toilet buying a turd.

 

[City]

Step 1: buy % of companies
Step 2: buy the rest of companies
Step 3: get bought by amazon


"You move 16 tons, and what do you get..."

 

[K3Nv2]

Not only does the Guillemot group own less of the company than Tencent - Tencent also is handling the group's long term loan refinancing

Tencent has a stranglehold on them, and the only way to get more stock than Tencent at this point would be to buy it from the public at market price. Considering they are in debt, their stock is falling, and Tencent is worth 600x more than all of the Ubisoft stock combined - I think this is likely the end of an independent Ubisoft (despite whatever the family says)

Whoever owns it at its current state it's been a downhill flush but hopefully they can publish a few more titles before they go fully iOS and micro transactions. Hopefully it just doesn't go the Konami route where they profit on gambling machines in casinos and let great IPs just rot to death on some random external hard drive.

 

[Bladexdsl]

and you thought ubi$oft was bad before just wait till these fucks get hold of them!

 

[1NOOB]

Step 1: buy % of companies
Step 2: buy the rest of companies
Step 3: get bought by amazon


"You move 16 tons, and what do you get..."

a good song .

 

[JuanMena]

It's sad to see you go Ubisoft, you were one of the best.

 

[Marc_LFD]

I might as well just forget about Ubisoft ever giving Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia a new, quality game.

They gave Rayman a "final" game which was incredible, so there's at least that for me.

 

[Marc_LFD]

It's sad to see you go Ubisoft, you were one of the best.

Ubisoft's collapse was already ongoing, especially with the bullshit of making digital purchases unplayable completely.

At least with piracy you can always play it.. as long as it's playable offline.

 

[Taleweaver]

I get why this can be considered a bet, but i honestly don't see how they're doing anything other than doing an investment.

So.... Is there a reason it's called that, or is it just speculation on that front?

(as for my opinion: a solid 'meh'. They've got some good games, but imho all their recent stuff recycles that stuff, and since i can't get to playing their games in the first place i don't really care what they do or who owns them)

 

[eyeliner]

I don't really think this as bad as most of people seem to point.

I am led to believe this is mostly a play to make the games enter China, via direct publishing.

Tencent are probably aware that Ubisoft is doing fine and messing around with their strategy will backfire fast.

This is mostly to circumvent some Chinese laws, I'd bet.