The Chinese company met with the Guillemots in May about buying more shares
Representatives of Tencent are reported to have flown to France in May to discuss the investment with members of the Guillemot family. According to sources, Tencent are also seeking to buy up publicly owned shares to help in their efforts to become majority shareholder. Public shareholders currently own 80% of Ubisoft’s shares, with another 15% held by the Guillemots and the remaining 5% at Tencent.
Share prices were up for both Ubisoft and the Guillemots’ holding company after the Reuters report was published earlier today. Tencent are looking to expand outside of their home country after beingeffectively frozenin the Chinese gaming market, the world’s largest, since the government there stopped granting new monetisation licences last summer. Licences started being issued again this April, but have yet to include Tencent.
Campaign group A Better Ubisofttweetedan update on July 28th revealing that none of the demands made in their open letter to the company a year earlier had been met. The letter was signed by 1000 current and former Ubisoft employees. A Better Ubisoft estimate that 25% of those who were at the company when the letter was published have since left, 39% of whom identify as female. “Women represent just 25.4% of our global workforce,” A Better Ubisoft said. “Which means that we are massively disproportionately losing women who signed our open letter calling for more action to tackle abuse.” After the letter was published, CEO Yves Guillemotclaimedthat “important progress” had already been made.
So far, Ubisoft have declined to comment on any deal with Tencent. It seems, though, that theconsolidation of the games industrycontinues. How would you feel about Tencent grabbing a larger slice of Ubisoft?
