Le Monde pumps up: he announced the takeover of Ubisoft as one of the main goals of competitors. The national treasure in the gaming industry is now more vulnerable than ever.
During the company’s latest results report, Yves Guillemot, one of the co-founders of Ubisoft, made it clear that the board would consider any such proposal. Ubisoft, with its licenses for Assassin’s Creed or Watch Dogs, looks both attractive and vulnerable: in the stock market, its valuation has fallen below €5.4 billion, and its share value has halved over the past four years (from €100 in 2018 to €43 today) .
Knowing the integrity and even rigidity of Ubisoft in the choice of business partners, it is difficult to predict to whom Guillemot is giving signals and whether the company is ready for the loss of independence. In May of this year, Bloomberg reported on the interest of investment companies Blackstone Inc. and KKK & Co in the Ubisoft acquisition. And in May, the American publisher Electronic Arts announced that it intends to sell its business or merge with another company. Therefore, different scenarios are possible.
In general, 2022 has already been marked by significant acquisitions in the video game industry. In January, Microsoft paid a record $75 billion to acquire Activision Blizzard, Take-Two wrote a $12.7 billion check to acquire Zynga assets, and Sony paid $3.6 billion for Bungie.
