GhostTrick
Banned
Because Yves is French and knows how Vivendi's Vincent Boloré turns everything he touches into dust. Canal+ got fucked up and lost all its audience when it's been bought by Boloré. Ubisoft is likely to follow.
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Vivendi ups stake in Ubisoft to 20.1 percent, edges toward takeover
- Thread starter Lime
- Start date
Because Yves is French and knows how Vivendi's Vincent Boloré turns everything he touches into dust. Canal+ got fucked up and lost all its audience when it's been bought by Boloré. Ubisoft is likely to follow.
Vivendi is in a volatile position. They broke deals with two Italian TV networks and are now being sued over 1.5 billions. And as mentioned before the TV business in France has been heavily damaged, it has been hemorrhaging money with unsubscribers and the loss of football licenses. Sole growth can be found in Africa and Vietnam, UMG is still making decent profits. But with this data I wouldn't put my money on Vivendi shares.
black cobra
Member
Sorry if off-topic, but is it safe to say that vivendi is indirectly involved when activision killed bizarre creation studios?
People keep saying that, but if Guillemot tried that he'd be fired on the spot by current shareholders. What shareholder would tolerate a CEO selling assets of a profitable company and driving value down just to save his ass? It doesn't work that way. That's why the only threat Guillemot can brandish is of the team synergy being broken or people leaving, ie things that would happen "naturally" without his meddling.
Not necessarily (though these days it happens), but shareholders will read the reports that say Ubi's trendy on that social media thing hip people talk about.
Nope. Selling all their gameloft shares and getting a loan from a mystery bank was just enough to get 3.5% more shares for a total of 12.84%
GrantDaNasty
Member
They don't have the assets to do that unfortunately. They've been buying up as much as they could and offering discounts to loyal employees (in hopes they'd refuse to sell to Vivendi), but if they had a way to directly prevent this takeover, they would've done it by now.
There will be a bump in share price first which will allow current shareholders to get out at a premium price. Also, debt loading is not necessarily a bad thing, plus I am not sure that is what Vivendi will do early on.
Eolz
Member
Not sure it's worth making a new thread about it, but Ubisoft bought back the 3.2% part that Bpifrance owned.
Quick tl;dr since it's in French (I'm french), but they bought those 3.2% for 122.5M (33.8/share) before their next investor meeting, where vivendi will be there.
Will be done at the beginning of november, Guillemot gives sincere thanks to Bpifrance for their support for many years.
Vivendi currently owns 23% of Ubisoft, 21% voting rights.
Guillemot family owned in early september 12.84% of Ubisoft, 18.91% voting rights.
Quick tl;dr since it's in French (I'm french), but they bought those 3.2% for 122.5M (33.8/share) before their next investor meeting, where vivendi will be there.
Will be done at the beginning of november, Guillemot gives sincere thanks to Bpifrance for their support for many years.
Vivendi currently owns 23% of Ubisoft, 21% voting rights.
Guillemot family owned in early september 12.84% of Ubisoft, 18.91% voting rights.
DeuceGamer
Member
Is the 12.84% before the 3.2% from Bpifrance, or after?
Eolz
Member
Before if I understand well the article. Should be clearer at the Investors meeting.
The division is a expensive new ip. siege is also new+ubi does a lot of smaller indie titles.
Sorry, Mr. Guillemot, this hostile takeover sucks and all that but.... LOL
How many big new ips have we seen with EA?
ThoughtsOfSpeaking
Banned
Giving it some more thought, Nintendo is set to suffer the most with a vivendi takeover.
Outside of Just dance, I can't see how any recent ubisoft release has been significantly profitable, or even broke even. Even games like Raman legends don't seem they made a massive impact.
A crippled ubisoft makes EA and Activision the only games in town in the western AAA space. Warner isn't quite there yet in terms of impact.
Outside of Just dance, I can't see how any recent ubisoft release has been significantly profitable, or even broke even. Even games like Raman legends don't seem they made a massive impact.
A crippled ubisoft makes EA and Activision the only games in town in the western AAA space. Warner isn't quite there yet in terms of impact.
Eolz
Member
JP Morgan (the same bank as the major Nintendo shareholder) is now holding 8.94% of Ubisoft's capital instead of 0.73%. Worth 7.9% voting rights.
http://www.romandie.com/news/JPMorgan-monte-a-pres-de-9-du-capital-dUbisoft/740202.rom
Speculation is that they're playing the white knight for Ubisoft. (Could also be there just for profits and selling shares later to vivendi obviously)
http://www.romandie.com/news/JPMorgan-monte-a-pres-de-9-du-capital-dUbisoft/740202.rom
Speculation is that they're playing the white knight for Ubisoft. (Could also be there just for profits and selling shares later to vivendi obviously)
ThoughtsOfSpeaking
Banned
Even if just for profits, it means vivendi has to give a much better buyout deal than previously intended. That alone gives ubisoft a little bit more breathing room for now.
This is good news.
I think For Honor and Steep qualify as risk taking titles.
Sorry, Mr. Guillemot, this hostile takeover sucks and all that but.... LOL
This (likely inevitable) takeover is really sad, Ubisoft is a good publisher, out of all the big 3rd party ones.
Certaily better than EA, take 2, etc...
Mass_Pincup
Banned
Hopefully it is the white knight part. Anything to keep Vivendi out of fully controlling Ubisoft.
DXB-KNIGHT
Member
Does anyone suspect Nintendo played a role convincing JP Morgan given their relationship with Ubi?
What's the relation between Nintendo and JP Morgan?
JP Morgan could believe that the current price and the potential Vivendi price is completely undervalued. Further, they could believe that the current Ubi management has great plans going forward to increase the firm's value.
What's the expected Vivendi buyout value on that note?
Their current market cap is $4.3 billion, which is well below EA and Activision, though they're still pretty significantly behind those companies on core statistics and product slate, so I'm assuming most people would not evaluate them as a $20 or even $10+ billion company.
Their current market cap is $4.3 billion, which is well below EA and Activision, though they're still pretty significantly behind those companies on core statistics and product slate, so I'm assuming most people would not evaluate them as a $20 or even $10+ billion company.
Eolz
Member
From several french game journalists twitter accounts, the white knight theory is basically confirmed.
If I'm reading it right, it's also implied it's basically like if Guillemot owned those shares. I guess there's some deal where he would buy back those shares over time, while JP Morgan would defend his position until then?
Guillemot really said before he wanted to avoid asking other publishers to help him, so it seems plausible.
If I'm reading it right, it's also implied it's basically like if Guillemot owned those shares. I guess there's some deal where he would buy back those shares over time, while JP Morgan would defend his position until then?
Guillemot really said before he wanted to avoid asking other publishers to help him, so it seems plausible.
What if Guillemot went to JP Morgan and showed them their pitch for a new high value project, which will increase the firm's value infinitely?
Yeah, I also don't believe it. But that's pretty much the argument for JP Morgan joining in to protect Ubisoft. Or personal feuds between JP Morgan managers and Vivendi.
letmetrythisname
Member
Will a Vivendi takeover get Ubisoft to make good games?
I'm french, and trust me, whatever we may think of Ubisoft, under Bolloré it will be much much worse. The JP Morgan rumors, if confirmed, are good news.
This kind of shitposting is not really useful to the thread now, is it ?
The fuck?
I hope to god that they don't get bought out. I like Ubisoft games and they always try to go for settings that haven't been explored much in video games. Keep them coming
bigboss370
Member
please god i hope the takeover doesn't happen. Ubi is a great company.
I can belive that.
I know no other reason why a Bank should white knighting a Videogame Developer they own less than 1% of.
Before tomorrow's shareholder meeting Ubisoft invited press to their Paris HQ, not to talk about games but instead about the company and its culture and what would probably be lost if Vivendi took over.
There's a report from the German games mag Gamestar with a video (both in German obviously):
http://www.gamestar.de/specials/reports/3303112/vivendi_vs_ubisoft.html
Keeping my thumbs pressed for tomorrow. It sucks that they probably can't talk about their NX plans in detail because Nintendo keeps waiting with the announcement.
There's a report from the German games mag Gamestar with a video (both in German obviously):
http://www.gamestar.de/specials/reports/3303112/vivendi_vs_ubisoft.html
Keeping my thumbs pressed for tomorrow. It sucks that they probably can't talk about their NX plans in detail because Nintendo keeps waiting with the announcement.
There is no white knighting in the financial market, only strategic investments and speculations. I still think Ubisoft is a sound investment for anybody interested in the gaming industry, especially if Ubisoft is able to cut costs and restructure certain aspects of their business which makes it overbloated and produces unnecessary spending (look at EA who can maintain both good profit margins and a diverse software line-up).
DXB-KNIGHT
Member
They are as described Major Nintendo shareholders,
This is just guessing, otherwise White Knighting without benefits seems odd.
Business is also build on relations and mutual interests
Eolz
Member
Of course but white knighting is a known strategy to avoid an hostile takeover.
Whatever is happening behind that doesn't change the fact that it is white knighting. This is a real term.
Eolz
Member
Why do you think BG&E2 was teased again?
To get this kind of reactions and say at the investors meeting that Vivendi would kill this game.
Edit: with smart investors pointing out that this game wouldn't bring in money anyway.
Triggerhappytel
Member
Big Triple-A franchises like the Tom Clancy series, Assassin's Creed, Watch Dogs and Far Cry will probably be fine. It's the smaller, more experimental stuff they'll kill off, like Rayman, Child of Light, Steep etc.
I'm not generally a big fan of their games, but objectively they're definitely one of the best publishers for making new IPs and taking risks. I'd be sad if that were taken away from them.
Honestly as much as I trust all those who keep saying this (after all Bollore is trying to strongarm companies also in Italy), no one provides any explaination for those of us that are not familiar with Vivendi history in gaming. I mean, don't they own ActiBlizzard basically? How was their management of the company such a disaster that everyone is afraid right now? I somehow got the impression that the hate stems from devs that were bought and subsequently shut down by them. How much of the data regarding company growth of Activision and Ubisoft presented by Guillemot is relevant and significant about the scenario?
Also, kinda LOL about JP Morgan being a white knight. Seems to me they're basically exchanging a loan shark with another.
Master Thespian
Member
I've never cared about Ubisoft games but now I'm super worried about this news with For Honor coming next year. Supposedly Ubi handled Siege very well post launch and I wanted the same to be true in For Honor's case.
Mass_Pincup
Banned
Vivendi's gaming history is irrelevant because they changed management. Bolloré arrived in 2014, at that time ActiBlizz already bought themselves back from Vivendi.
Bolloré then ushered a new plan of transitioning Vivendi into a media company first and foremost with them buying Dailymotion and Radionomy and selling their telecomunication company.
Bolloré is helming himself the Canal+ Group and fired countless "controversial employee" censored and cancelled "controversial program which could harm Canal+ relationship with its partners" and lastly this week in the TV programming section of its magazine, a segment about a damaging report on the investigation of Nicolas Sarkozy was mysteriously missing.
Suffice it to say that he is not really well liked in France right now.
Couldn't you even say Guillemot is going to make bank by buying up more shares trying to fight a losing battle or he wins either way from different perspectives.
Now that's better. So it's strictly a management issue, not something tied to their gaming history?
The first reactions I remember were along the lines of "they're gonna bleed them and let them to die" basically.
Mass_Pincup
Banned
Yeah it's not about their gaming history.
That's what the former management of Vivendi were doing with ActiBlizz which forced them to buy themselves back but as I said since Vivendi's focus changed in the meantime that seems unlikely to me.
Case in point being the aquisition of IP and subsequent shutdown of Sierra, Universal, Fox and so on, correct?