Vivendi reportedly planning to launch a Hostile Takeover Bid of Ubisoft this year

[AlTech]

Vivendi, a large french conglomerate which at some point in time used to own a majority stake in Activision Blizzard, is looking to launch a hostile takeover of Ubisoft.

 

A hostile takeover bid of this nature is defined as being a controlling bid in the stake of a company. In this case, the french law states (both Ubisoft and Vivendi are french fyi) that companies which wish to bid for over 30% of a company's shares much submit a public offer.

 

This move is concerning because Vivendi owns Gameloft which used to be owned by Ubisoft. And you know who's in charge of Ubisoft and used to be in charge of Gameloft? The Guillemot family. Let that sink in for a moment.

 

Quote

"Vivendi is moving to the second phase, everything will take place this year," one source revealed to Reuters. A second source posited that buying Ubisoft would be a logical move for Vivendi, but the company "could consider other targets in China."

 

Vivendi has its fingers in many pies, so to speak, including the video game sector. The firm was previously a majority owner of Activision Blizzard, and it currently claims a controlling stake in Gameloft — a company originally founded by the Guillemot family, which also founded Ubisoft. If Vivendi exceeds a 30 percent stake in Ubisoft, it is required under French law to submit a public offer for the company.

 

And so we're all on the same page here, this is a list of companies which Vivendi owns and in some cases I was able to find how much revenue they've generated:

• Universal Music Group (The world's leading record label and a huge contributor to Spotify's content library) - It generated 1.5 Billion Euros in 2012. You can bet your ass it's significantly higher now.
• DailyMotion (Do i really need to explain how large DailyMotion is? It has over 3.5 Billion views each month......)
• Gameloft (A ridiculously large Mobile Game publisher) - It generated 256 Million Euros in 2015.
• Canal (A successful film and television studio)
• See Tickets (A hugely successful ticketing sales organization) It generated 20 Million Euros in 2015.

And they used to own Activision Blizzard, a company which generated $1.1 billion dollars om 2015. They bought back 429 Million shares to become independent of

 

So yeah. I'm hoping anti trust lawsuits happen and that the french government and EA asks Vivendi to be split up if they purchase Ubisoft.

 

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Music_Group

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivendi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dailymotion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal%2B_Group

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gameloft

http://www.vivendi.com/en/vivendi-en/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_Entertainment

http://www.windowscentral.com/vivendi-reportedly-moving-towards-ubisoft-takeover

[suicidalfranco]

good ridance

[typographie]

5 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

good ridance

Do you really think Ubisoft's games are going to improve if they're published by an even bigger and even less competitive media conglomerate? This is good for Vivendi and, as far as I can tell, no one else.

[Guest]

I might miss the point here, but why is this bad?

[Delicieuxz]

This was talked about last year, and Yves Guillemot said that Ubisoft would make all efforts to fend off such an effort, and would consider merging Ubisoft with another company to prevent it from happening.

 

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/13/ubisoft-ceo-open-to-a-merger--but-not-with-vivendi.html

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-11-28-ubisofts-developers-cant-live-with-the-threat-of-vivendi-takeover

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ubisoft-on-vivendi-takeover-threat-reinventing-ass/1100-6443817/

[AlTech]

1 minute ago, Dutch-stoner said:

I might miss the point here, but why is this bad?

Vivendi makes upwards of 7 Billion Euros dollars every year.

 

This acquisition benefits nobody but Vivendi. It is anti consumer and almost constitutes anti-trust.

 

This company is so damn huge. They own the rights to a huge portion of the music that over 40 Million people listen to every day. They own France's leading Networks and a huge film studio.

They're basically just too big. A single company shouldn't have too much power. That is the big problem with this.

[Superspeed07]

7 minutes ago, Dutch-stoner said:

I might miss the point here, but why is this bad?

Vivendi is a terrible company that cares about no one but them self, Think the Worst of EA and Ubisoft and combine that and then make it twice as bad.

[Guest]

Ok, I understand what you are saying. But I would personaly consider this just a minor footnote in history, when I look at Intel, Microsoft and Google. Each for their own reasons. Those companies have an almost monopoly in their area, with only a few other minor players (in my opinion). Sooo...

[Delicieuxz]

8 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Vivendi makes upwards of 7 Billion Euros dollars every year.

 

This acquisition benefits nobody but Vivendi. It is anti consumer and almost constitutes anti-trust.

 

This company is so damn huge. They own the rights to a huge portion of the music that over 40 Million people listen to every day. They own France's leading Networks and a huge film studio.

They're basically just too big. A single company shouldn't have too much power. That is the big problem with this.

I agree. With Microsoft dealing with over $80 billion in revenue each year, and making more than $16 billion in net profits last year, anti-trust lawsuits should be filed, and the company should be broken into multiple companies, with measures put into place to prevent Microsoft from abusing its position by stealing its customers' data, spying on them, and enacting bullying and anti-competitive measures within their software.

 

Microsoft shows that when a company is too big, and with far too much power, that it begins abusing that power, along with its customers. You are so right.

[zMeul]

13 minutes ago, typographie said:

Do you really think Ubisoft's games are going to improve if they're published by an even bigger and even less competitive media conglomerate? This is good for Vivendi and, as far as I can tell, no one else.

as they are, do you actually believe UBi's games worth a damn?!

UBi can go fuck themselves, a Vivendi takeover won't matter one bit

[goodtofufriday]

22 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

good ridance

I wish I could downvote you. They have their issues but I still enjoy their games.

[suicidalfranco]

5 minutes ago, goodtofufriday said:

I wish I could downvote you. They have their issues but I still enjoy their games.

downvote all you want, they used to make good games back in the 2000s, today, they're just one of the worst and they can go seriously fuck themselves for all i care

[zMeul]

5 minutes ago, goodtofufriday said:

I wish I could downvote you. They have their issues but I still enjoy their games.

aren't you funny ...

 

their games, like what?

• The Division - got a year 2 announcement that left all the player base severely disappointed with many of them abandoning the game
• For Honor - it's a fucking mess; did they even addressed the p2p MP and cheating? I don't recall
• Ghost Recon Wildlands - a fucking joke of a Ghost Recon game; the 1st DLC also a joke - people who payed for the season pass are regretting it

[Guest]

I wouldn't be sad if ubisoft went down. Don't like their DRM stuff. (have some older games, legal dvd's, but can't play due to serials in use...)

[Delicieuxz]

6 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

downvote all you want, they used to make good games back in the 2000s, today, they're just one of the worst and they can go seriously fuck themselves for all i care

Yeah, Ubi has let themselves become a cut & paste producer of generic games. But it looks like they're more recently making efforts to improve their behaviour. The more serious effort with the upcoming Assassin's Creed game, and having Beyond Good and Evil 2 in production look like indicators of that, to me.

 

Ubisoft's CEO gives some insight into their game-business perspective in this interview:

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ubisoft-on-vivendi-takeover-threat-reinventing-ass/1100-6443817/

[zMeul]

1 minute ago, Delicieuxz said:

Yeah, Ubi has let themselves become a cut & paste producer of generic games, but it looks like they're more recently making efforts to improve their behaviour. The more serious effort with the upcoming Assassin's Creed game, and having Beyond Good and Evil 2 in production look like indicators of that, to me.

 

Ubisoft's CEO gives some insight into their game-business perspective in this interview:

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ubisoft-on-vivendi-takeover-threat-reinventing-ass/1100-6443817/

September 22, 2016 

[typographie]

23 minutes ago, zMeul said:

as they are, do you actually believe UBi's games worth a damn?!

UBi can go fuck themselves, a Vivendi takeover won't matter one bit

If what you're really asking is if I think Ubisoft games have anything left to lose, I do. I generally like the Splinter Cell and Anno series, and I'm looking forward to Beyond Good & Evil 2. And although I don't have any interest in it, I hear Watch Dogs 2 is surprisingly pretty solid. I may not make any friends around here by saying so, but I don't believe games are automatically worthless just because Ubisoft happened to make them.

[zMeul]

4 minutes ago, typographie said:

If what you're really asking is if I think Ubisoft games have anything left to lose, I do. I generally like the Splinter Cell and Anno series, and I'm looking forward to Beyond Good & Evil 2. And although I don't have any interest in it, I hear Watch Dogs 2 is surprisingly pretty solid. I may not make any friends around here by saying so, but I don't believe games are automatically worthless just because Ubisoft happened to make them.

UBi hasn't put good games on the market for quite few years

at this point they could do a Konami and go for pinball machines  

[AlTech]

56 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

I agree. With Microsoft dealing with over $80 billion in revenue each year, and making more than $16 billion in net profits last year, anti-trust lawsuits should be filed, and the company should be broken into multiple companies, with measures put into place to prevent Microsoft from abusing its position by stealing its customers' data, spying on them, and enacting bullying and anti-competitive measures within their software.

 

Microsoft shows that when a company is too big, and with far too much power, that it begins abusing that power, along with its customers. You are so right.

I never said Microsoft shouldn't be broken up as a company

[UnknownEngineer]

17 minutes ago, zMeul said:

UBi hasn't put good games on the market for quite few years

at this point they could do a Konami and go for pinball machines  

So, because you don't like Ubisofts games, you think they should just be used to make some corporation even more powerful. This buyout could cause an anti-trust case, but it's all right because ubis games are bad.

 

Even then, you can't say their games are objectively bad. I for one like Anno 2070 and R6 Siege. I would like to get For honor, but I am simply put off by it being P2P and I don't really have money to drop on everything. I also wanted to get the new Anno game, but again, I can't drop money on everything.

[zMeul]

22 minutes ago, UnknownEngineer said:

So, because you don't like Ubisofts games, you think they should just be used to make some corporation even more powerful. This buyout could cause an anti-trust case, but it's all right because ubis games are bad.

 

Even then, you can't say their games are objectively bad. I for one like Anno and R6 Siege. I would like to get For honor, but I am simply put off by it being P2P and I don't really have money to drop on everything.

bad games - bad management; no excuse

and this is why UBi will be swallowed whole by Vivendi

 

last Anno game was released like 2y ago

 

what is Yves Guillemot doing since Viendi started gaining % of UBi? he started crying and he pledged he won't allow a takeover - big fucking fail

if Vivendi takes 30% stake in UBi, by french law, they have to attempt a takeover 

 

for 2016: http://www.metacritic.com/feature/game-publisher-rankings-for-2016-releases

UBi is last, dropped from no9 for 2015

[MoonSpot]

43 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

... having Beyond Good and Evil 2 in production look like indicators of that, to me.

I don't believe you.  Even the link you posted didn't say they were making it, only said that consumers wouldn't want a BG&E2 that was poorly made. That carrot has been dangled for 15 years, there comes a point where you simply have to call bullshitting what it is.

[Bouzoo]

Ubisoft has had their share of dumb decisions, but Vivendi is far, far worse. I suppose people forgot how Vivendi tried to take $3 billion out of Blizzard and put them into debt so they could pay their own debts. The best thing Blizzard ever did was separating themselves from Vivendi.

 

21 minutes ago, zMeul said:

UBi hasn't put good games on the market for quite few years

at this point they could do a Konami and go for pinball machines  

Define few years. Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Far Cry 4, Assassins Creed Rogue, Rayman Legends and Child of Light are great games. And I do know a bunch of people who think that Watch Dogs 2, Rainbox Six Siege and AC: Syndicate are than great games as well (just to name a few).

"Good game" is a subjective term. You may not like the current Ubisoft, and neither do I for that matter, but they are still one of industries leading companies in every way. Don't think only of their board of directors and Guillemot family, it's obvious they have some of the brightest minds below them. I want a new POP: WW or AC: 2, but we may never get them. Doesn't mean I'd like for them to drop dead and get bought by the prime evil. Just look at the history of companies Vivendi bought and used/destroyed. I'd pick Ubi as a solo company any day of the week. 

[zMeul]

3 minutes ago, Bouzoo said:

Doesn't mean I'd like for them to drop dead and get bought by the prime evil. Just look at the history of companies Vivendi bought and used/destroyed. I'd pick Ubi as a solo company any day of the week. 

oh right because Vivendi destroyed Activision!? oh wait! they are doing way shittier things than when under Vivendi - go figure 

 

Vivendi acquiring UBi's shares hasn't started yesterday and UBi had very long time preparing and strengthening their business - it didn't happen, it got worse!

[laminutederire]

1 hour ago, zMeul said:

aren't you funny ...

 

their games, like what?

• The Division - got a year 2 announcement that left all the player base severely disappointed with many of them abandoning the game
• For Honor - it's a fucking mess; did they even addressed the p2p MP and cheating? I don't recall
• Ghost Recon Wildlands - a fucking joke of a Ghost Recon game; the 1st DLC also a joke - people who payed for the season pass are regretting it

Watch _ dogs 2 isn't actually that bad, r6 siege isn't either.

They're not doing everything wrong.