• Welcome to Install Base!
    Join the Community and gain access to Prediction Leagues, Polls, specific answers and exclusive content now!

Ubisoft shareholders in talks over possible buyout terms, sources say

fiendcode

Member
Analyst Original Donor
Looks like it's happening...

Tencent, currently the second-largest shareholder in Ubisoft and China's biggest social network and gaming firm, has yet to decide whether to participate in the buyout and increase its stake in the company, one of the people said.

This is partly because it has asked for a greater say on future board decisions including cash flow distribution in return for financing the deal, which has not been agreed upon with the Guillemot family, the person added.

Discussions between the two parties are ongoing as Tencent also wants to prevent any potential hostile takeover of Ubisoft by other investors, said the person, adding that Tencent's plan is to remain patient and wait for the founding family to agree to a deal.

 
They keep releasing flop after flop and it bounds to happen sooner or later.

2024 flops
Skull and bones
Xdefiant
Prince of Persia tlc
Starwars Outlaws
Delayed AC shadows that costed millions

AC shadows is currently the most disliked ubisoft game on YouTube and it's likely to bomb in similar fashion as Outlaws.
 
However, the Guillemot family has indicated it would like to retain the control it has over the company, which also makes Just Dance, Far Cry and Tom Clancy's video game series, as part of a deal, the people said.
That’s a no from me dawg. This was always going to be a mess but seemingly the worst outcome may be chosen out of the hat.
 
That’s a no from me dawg. This was always going to be a mess but seemingly the worst outcome may be chosen out of the hat.
Honestly I doubt Tencent gives them free reign. They'll be involved but I'd imagine if they miss milestones they'll be out fast (like the SIE/Bungie deal).
 
There is no way Ubisoft will make it through 2025 without massive changes. Even if Shadows does as well as Valhalla and Far Cry 7 is coming this fall, everything is hinting at a company in free fall.

AC shadows is currently the most disliked ubisoft game on YouTube and it's likely to bomb in similar fashion as Outlaws.
All the dislikes are because of the massive protagonist screw-up.

I think Shadows might suffer from the launch window, but it would be unbelievable if it would sell anywhere near as badly as Outlaws did.
 
Last edited:
So this is likely a precursor to going private, taking shares from retail investors and leaving only the institutional ones, with one largest shareholder dictating terms, going private to clean up the business before (eventually) going public again.

And Tencent is still deciding if it wants to be that largest shareholder, according to the article.
 
Honestly I doubt Tencent gives them free rein. They'll be involved but I'd imagine if they miss milestones they'll be out fast (like the SIE/Bungie deal).
I have no doubt they’ll be on a tight leash if Tencent agrees but I just want them going into the night never to be heard from again.
 
It's weird to think Ubisoft is in this position when a decade ago they seemed untouchable. Shows how quickly things can shift in this industry.
 
If I were Tencent I'd just give the Guillemots enough rope that they inevitably fail on various KPIs/metrics and just gobble the company up piecemeal like SIE/Bungie. At the moment the IPs are undervalued (thanks to the actions of the Guillemots themselves), it would be a steal. The problem afterwards is what to do with a company of that size that requires years of reworking, but frankly you could put most of the headcount to use in a productive way that isn't DOA crap like xDefiant.
 
It's weird to think Ubisoft is in this position when a decade ago they seemed untouchable. Shows how quickly things can shift in this industry.

Even less than a decade ago really. That 2017-2018 period was insane.


-AC Origins/Odyssey in 2017 and 2018 turned the franchise around from the Unity/Syndicate fumbles.
-2017+2018 was the turn around for their most important game(highest earner) Rainbow Six Siege.
People often forget how badly the game was received at launch, this is Ubisoft's No Man's Sky.

-Mario + Rabbids 1, released in 2017.
-Tom Clancy's Wildlands, released in 2017.
-Far Cry 5, released 2018. One of if not the highest selling Ubisoft game in terms of unit sales.
-The Crew 2, released in 2018.
-You also had The Division 2 in March of 2019, although I think that game kind of didn't do as well long term as Ubisoft would've likely hoped in the long term.


But then Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint happened and Ubisoft was never the same.
Of course it's not the game and the issues within the company were years in the making.
I just wanted to rag on that unfinished game, haha.
 
Ubisoft's ownership structure is very weird. Ubisoft is also huge huge despite lack of profitable games. They need restructuring. Curious to see who is willing to buy them.
 
They keep releasing flop after flop and it bounds to happen sooner or later.

2024 flops
Skull and bones
Xdefiant
Prince of Persia tlc
Starwars Outlaws
Delayed AC shadows that costed millions

AC shadows is currently the most disliked ubisoft game on YouTube and it's likely to bomb in similar fashion as Outlaws.
Prince of Persia deserved better. Great game.
 
Look at Nintendo 10 years ago, I mean they are stilled doomed but just less so nowadays
Even in Nintendo’s case they at least had a big stack of cash on hand and could weather some bumpy years. Third party publishers seem much more volatile in comparison.
 


NEWS: Assassin's Creed Shadows is delayed again, now to March 20, Ubisoft says, as the company pursues "various transformational strategic and capitalistic options to extract the best value for stakeholders" (looks for a potential sale).

The Ubisoft saga continues, truly one of the trainwrecks of all time.
You can't look away, you know things are going to hit an abrupt wall at some point.
 
They want to find a buyer before the new Ass Creed releases. Makes me think they're afraid it might bomb and thus sabotage a potential sale.
 
Stick a fork in it, Yves. You're cooked.

EDIT: Here's the press release for those who want it. Some choice quotes:
Ubisoft announced today that it has appointed leading advisors to review and pursue various transformational strategic and capitalistic options to extract the best value for stakeholders. This process will be overseen by the independent members of the Board of Directors. Ubisoft will inform the market in accordance with applicable regulations if and once a transaction materializes.
Ubisoft still expects approximately break-even non-IFRS operating income and free cash flow forFY2024-25. Net bookings are now expected to come in at around €1.9 billion, and include new partnership opportunities for Ubisoft’s games and franchises as well as for the monetization of the streaming rights acquired last fiscal year.
 
I don't see them surviving, nevermind staying intact.

It's a shame the timeline for Nintendo's new building not being ready until 2028, in addition to them laying the ground work for a newer building, weren't open for business/ staffing a few years earlier.

There is a lot of fantastic talent/ studios @ Ubisoft Nintendo could definitely use.
 
Don't see how Shadows lives up to the internal expectations piled on it at this point, and the delays don't signal strong confidence either. I think the reputation they've garnered has caught up to them even with the more casual crowd that fueled so many of their constant successes in the 7th and 8th gens. Hard not to start seeing some flashbacks to the aftermath of 2008 with an industry titan this big going down this hard. THQ and Midway vibes.
 
Ubisoft is the embodiment of the AAA gaming model at its peak, with its strengths and its shortcomings.
Not surprised they struggle when their model seems to come to an end...
 
I think it might be a good idea to get away from the dense February launch window, but you can't help but assume the game is a buggy mess when it keeps getting delayed like this.
 
So is this a way to get out from under Tencent's proposal by finding a buyer who will let Yves and Guillemots retain their control? Or is it being done with Tencent's blessing to try and salvage the company?
 
So is this a way to get out from under Tencent's proposal by finding a buyer who will let Yves and Guillemots retain their control? Or is it being done with Tencent's blessing to try and salvage the company?
If Shadows performs poorly they'll end up devaluing themselves even further. They're probably looking for a buyer before they release the game.
 
I don't see them surviving, nevermind staying intact.

It's a shame the timeline for Nintendo's new building not being ready until 2028, in addition to them laying the ground work for a newer building, weren't open for business/ staffing a few years earlier.

There is a lot of fantastic talent/ studios @ Ubisoft Nintendo could definitely use.
I think you need to speak fluently japanese if you want to work at Nintendo Japan.
 
Google currently says their market cap is around 1.59B Euro or around 1.63B in USD when using Google's currency converter.

The next Ubisoft financial report is supposed to come out on February 13th and cover their Q3 results.

I think it's possible they could go under a billion if those numbers are incredibly bad like everyone is expecting.
 
I don't see them surviving, nevermind staying intact.

It's a shame the timeline for Nintendo's new building not being ready until 2028, in addition to them laying the ground work for a newer building, weren't open for business/ staffing a few years earlier.

There is a lot of fantastic talent/ studios @ Ubisoft Nintendo could definitely use.
Nintendo EPD just has a handful of western employees, they are almost all Japanese.
 
So is this a way to get out from under Tencent's proposal by finding a buyer who will let Yves and Guillemots retain their control? Or is it being done with Tencent's blessing to try and salvage the company?
Yves' been looking for a buyer for almost a year. Tencent aren't worried about it because not only yves needs to find a buyer who trusts him but one with enough funds to beat any counter by tencent, keep in mind reuters reported tencent valued ubisoft and its ips at $10 billion back in 2022.
 
Does Ubisoft have any irons in the fire that aren't Assassin's Creed? I can't think of any other particularly valuable IPs of theirs.

I recall The Division 1 and 2 being very successful, Rainbow Six Siege was also huge for a good while.
 
Does Ubisoft have any irons in the fire that aren't Assassin's Creed? I can't think of any other particularly valuable IPs of theirs.
Far Cry
Rainbow Six
Ghost Recon
The Division
WatchDogs

Most of these IPs peaked quite some time ago, and new entries are either in development hell or don't exist.
 
Does Ubisoft have any irons in the fire that aren't Assassin's Creed? I can't think of any other particularly valuable IPs of theirs.
They've got that Heroes of Might & Magic game coming to early access this year.

EDIT: But as a general rule, Ubisoft relied on the Tom Clancy name to sell plenty of its non-Assassin's Creed games and have been slow to develop new IPs. Watch Dogs was legit the last non-Clancy new IP until Immortals Fenyx Rising (which sold enough to get a sequel rolling before they stopped that dead with a cancellation to get them on assist work for their bigger IPs and killed any new hopes of continuing the IFR IP's success) and the recent string of failures (Skull & Bones, XDefiant, etc.).

IFR was a 2020 game, 6 years after the first Watch Dogs. So we are a decade on without a successful new IP (or at least one that has nothing to do with IP they don't own, so we can scratch Mario+Rabbids off the list, especially since it's dead now anyways).

On top of that, several IPs have been devalued and allowed to wither on the vine in that timeframe.
 
Last edited:
Does Ubisoft have any irons in the fire that aren't Assassin's Creed? I can't think of any other particularly valuable IPs of theirs.
Far Cry is big, and the new game is gonna get revealed this year, likely this summer.

They also have several other Assassins Creed games in development, as well as The Division 3, which might do well. Just Dance has also traditionally been one of the biggest Ubisoft earners, but the franchise has seen slower sales than usual lately. Anno is doing well and the new Rome-focused game will come out in 2025.

Another wildcard is For Honor, which was very successful, but there have been no rumblings of a sequel.

Shadows and Far Cry 7 are the two juggernauts for Ubisoft in the next year or two, and then the next batch of Assassin's Creed games and The Division 3 being the second stance in the coming 2-3 years.
 
I'd go so far as to say layoffs at Ubisoft are pretty inevitable. It's pretty much the single most bloated developer on the planet.
 
Ubisoft is doing evrything they can for Assassin's Creed Shadows to not flop because if it does, they're actually fucking cooked. If Assassin's Creed can't save you, nothing can. It'll have been a long time coming if so and it'll prove that even the big dogs can fail.
 
I remember this slide from many years ago where Ubisoft was bragging about owning the IPs of the games they make. Back then they didn't know that 2 of biggest flops of all time that will bring Ubisoft down will be licenced IPs.

EA is doing better then ever and have given up on FIFA licence. Also cancelled their Star Wars game. Its clear too much of anything is bad and Disney giving Star Wars licence to anyone who wanted was not very good idea.
DV2c1HZX4AEc9hf.jpg:large
 
I remember this slide from many years ago where Ubisoft was bragging about owning the IPs of the games they make. Back then they didn't know that 2 of biggest flops of all time that will bring Ubisoft down will be licenced IPs.

EA is doing better then ever and have given up on FIFA licence. Also cancelled their Star Wars game. Its clear too much of anything is bad and Disney giving Star Wars licence to anyone who wanted was not very good idea.
DV2c1HZX4AEc9hf.jpg:large
In all fairness, EA making most of their money on IPs they don’t control is actually a considerable issue for them, especially when Android Wilson was looking to sell the company some time ago and everyone went “LOLno” for exactly that reason.
 
Wait, isn't all the Clancy stuff also semi license bound? Or does Ubi own it outright?

Classing the Rockstar stuff differently on that chart seems slimy too given T2 also owns them outright. That's like saying Sega doesn't fully own Persona or something.
 
Wait, isn't all the Clancy stuff also semi license bound? Or does Ubi own it outright?
Ubisoft bought the rights to his name in “games and ancillary products” around 16 years ago.
 
EA is doing better then ever and have given up on FIFA licence. Also cancelled their Star Wars game. Its clear too much of anything is bad and Disney giving Star Wars licence to anyone who wanted was not very good idea.
The issue with Star Wars has little to do with licensing per se - the issue is that Disney itself has devalued Star Wars (ahead of Outlaw's release they had cancelled another poorly received Star Wars TV show). Stack that on top of Ubisoft's own recent reputation and it's easy to see why Outlaws performed as it did, while titles that established a good reputation independent of the overall perception of Star Wars (Respawn's Jedi titles) performed fine.

Ubisoft bought the rights to his name in “games and ancillary products” around 16 years ago.
In my opinion the Clancy license is a goldmine that Ubisoft have squandered for years. Not because of anything uniquely valuable the setting offers (it's just stock Cold War airport novel stuff), but there is still a lot of value attached to the Splinter Cell/Rainbow6/Ghost Recon brands that just needs to be realised by the right products. If Ubisoft don't find a buyer and there's a firesale on individual intellectual properties, whoever buys the Clancy rights could do very well.
 
The issue with Star Wars has little to do with licensing per se - the issue is that Disney itself has devalued Star Wars (ahead of Outlaw's release they had cancelled another poorly received Star Wars TV show). Stack that on top of Ubisoft's own recent reputation and it's easy to see why Outlaws performed as it did, while titles that established a good reputation independent of the overall perception of Star Wars (Respawn's Jedi titles) performed fine.
The bigger issue with Outlaws is just being a generically boring game. Could’ve been better done by anyone other than Ubisoft or Star Wars could have a better reception & it still would’ve performed like it did because the game is pure mid.
 
Uh oh


Tencent, Guillemot Family Are Said to Mull Ubisoft Asset Venture​

Chinese firm, family evaluating assets to be included, value Ubisoft deal may help Tencent expand business outside of China​

 
Back
Top Bottom