• News

Ubisoft Finds Itself Fighting Off A Hostile Takeover By Way of Vivendi

Vivendi is gunning for Ubisoft something fierce. 

Brittany Vincent

February 27, 2016 12:15 PM

4

I'm interrupting my weekend coverage of waifus and Nintendo news to bring you something with a little more business sense. I know, crazy.

It seems as though Ubisoft is being targeted by French conglomerate Vivendi, and that is a very strange sentence to type. The solution? Canadian government (by way of prime minister Justin Trudeau) as well as other investors to stave off the takeover.

According to various sources, it appears that Vivendi is pursuing Ubisoft shares to earn more and more influence over the company, since Vivendi has been gunning for a stake in Ubisoft ever since last fall, when it purchased 7.36m shares of the company for $161 million. Not too long after that Vivendi increased its stake in the company to 10.39 per cent, eyeing mobile game company Gameloft in the process.

Ubisoft head Yves Guillemot has called these moves "unsolicited and unwelcome," and thus the company is fighting back by reaching out to Trudeau and additional investors who are pledging support. According to Ubisoft, the company's employees would be far better off at Ubisoft under Ubisoft's control, as reported by Eurogamer.

Obviously it sounds as though the employees would be better off at a company that's scrambling to protect itself from a group that's looking to take over another company by way of brute force, but only time will tell as to what's going to end up happening. It's a curious situation, to say the least.

Brittany Vincent

Senior Editor

Fueled by horror, rainbow-sugar-pixel-rushes, and video games, Brittany is a Senior Editor at Shacknews who thrives on surrealism and ultraviolence. Follow her on Twitter @MolotovCupcake and check out her portfolio for more. Like a fabulous shooter once said, get psyched!