Who would that benefit? Ubi would lose its IPs and therefore revenue, which would lead to layoffs, shareholders would lose money because the stock price would tank, Ubi wouldn't have the capital to invest in new projects so it's not like you'll be getting new games. It would be a disaster, not to mention probably illegal. A Vivendi takeover would be objectively better than that plan.
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Vivendi ups stake in Ubisoft to 20.1 percent, edges toward takeover
- Thread starter Lime
- Start date
you can't purposely cause harm. It's illegal, in America at least.
Exactly.
Such a plan -- which must be publicly disclosed -- would drive every stockholder to sell to Vivendi as soon as the market opens.
Yeah, after what they did with Patrice Désilets, I'm having a sensible chuckle with what's going on with their company right now.
Who is they? Shareholders want the company to have high profit margins so they can make money in their share investment either through dividends or share price. Selling off your IP for one time cash injections isn't "making money" in a business, it's selling off assets when you're broke. No healthy business would willingly do that.
honestly. That still seems pretty smart. Disney spent billions on marvel and has definitely made it back. Though if I was Nintendo I would want to own Ubi outright and then just leave the Guillemonts in charge
D
Deleted member 80556
Unconfirmed Member
Also, didn't Guillemot say that they were in discussions with other partners for a possible merger? Or was that possibly damage control?
Depending on how this plays out, it could be a bad sign for the industry as a whole. It is no secret that media conglomerates want to increase their portfolios and the video game industry is huge. We have already what Vivendi did to Blizzard and Sierra.
Look at how active Chinese firms have been with purchasing American assets. One of them could be on the verge of buying the UFC. What is stopping them from sinking their teeth into the industry and controlling most of the major publishers.
Maybe I going too far off the edge with this doom and gloom scenario, but I sincerely hope this isn't the outlook for the generation 10-15 years down the road.
Look at how active Chinese firms have been with purchasing American assets. One of them could be on the verge of buying the UFC. What is stopping them from sinking their teeth into the industry and controlling most of the major publishers.
Maybe I going too far off the edge with this doom and gloom scenario, but I sincerely hope this isn't the outlook for the generation 10-15 years down the road.
Schnozberry
Member
DeNA is a good example, because I think they fit in with multiple long term initiatives for Nintendo, whereas the benefits of buying into to Ubi are somewhat nebulous long term. DeNA had the experience to guide Nintendo into the unfamiliar waters of mobile development, help them with improving their own online infrastructure, and presumably the account system that will come to fruition on NX.
I could see Nintendo joining a cadre of friendly investors to get a seat on the board at Ubi and use that position of influence to get additional support for their platforms, but I would think a large share purchase would be out of the question. They've already committed a lot of capital dollars into making films, developing Amusement Parks, and into the R&D for the launch of NX.
Vivendi is obviously a terrible corporation that stifles creativity. But I've not exactly been happy with a lot of the games they've been putting out recently. E3 this year especially had a real problem with the presentation of their upcoming games, at least for me, which just looked...not great (except maybe For Honor).
If the outcome of this was that they sell themselves to another publisher who shook up their current approach at making and selling games, maybe it would be an improvement.
If the outcome of this was that they sell themselves to another publisher who shook up their current approach at making and selling games, maybe it would be an improvement.
Spring Drive
Banned
Meanwhile, the Bolloré Group (led by Vincent Bolloré) buys more Vivendi stock. They now own 15.33 % of shares and 16.41 % of voting rights.
Vincent Bolloré says he does not plan on taking over Vivendi but doesn't rule out buying more shares or asking for better representation at the supervisory board (exactly what happened with Gameloft and Ubisoft, by the way)
Source: http://votreargent.lexpress.fr/bour...euil-de-15-du-capital-de-vivendi_1804602.html
Vincent Bolloré says he does not plan on taking over Vivendi but doesn't rule out buying more shares or asking for better representation at the supervisory board (exactly what happened with Gameloft and Ubisoft, by the way)
Source: http://votreargent.lexpress.fr/bour...euil-de-15-du-capital-de-vivendi_1804602.html
Sorry for the bump, but I can't make a new thread. Looks like Ubisoft started a campaign called "We are Ubisoft". They changed their avatars on social networks (twitter etc.) and published a video about their independence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5rc-LvXHb8
Looks like the situation is becoming worse for them...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5rc-LvXHb8
Looks like the situation is becoming worse for them...
I give it 18 months until we get "remember when Ubisoft were good?" threads.
Caesar III
Member
This was the first thing I thought as well when I saw the campaign. Ah well.
Transistor
Banned
They could, or they could demand changes. Worrying about losing control over your company is pretty reasonable.
Because the first thing Vivendi will do is throw him out. Also they acquired a big french TV network a few years ago and have literally been gutting it, turning it into a mere shadow of its former self.
I'm actually wondering what their goal here is. My guess would be to make their fans aware of their situation... but then what. Do they hope the fans will make enough of a fuss in order to scare investors of selling or agreeing with the takeover?
I think in the end this is just a passion project in the eye of the inevitable. I truly believe Guillemot wants to stay independent and that if would break his heart if Vivendi took over. But that's business.
They will, they have their own content needs.
Worth noting the Guillemot increased their shares in Ubisoft a few days ago, from 9.2% up to 12.84%, which represent 18,91% of the voting rights. It's less than Vivendi but the goal is for them to prevent Vivendi to hit the 30% shares (they're at 23%) before the next shareholders meeting, at the end of this month (Sept. 29). Because if it was the case, according to the French law, Vivendi would be forced to do a takeover bid (OPA).
HellBlazer
Member
Dude, what? Would you want control of the company that you spent 30 years of your life to build from scratch to be taken from you? Even if Vivendi just let them do business as usual after the takeover (unlikely), that has to hurt a lot.
Nostremitus
Member
Because it's his company?
He and his brothers founded Ubisoft and built it up from nothing.
It's literally a family business being swallowed by corporate interests.
No it isn't. It would be if Ubi didn't go public in 1996 and sold a majority of their shares, but they did and so it hasn't technically been a family business for the last 20 years.
Fans don't enter the equation, the message is directed at shareholders. Right now Vivendi seems to want to do this the soft way, ie at the next shareholder meeting Vivendi will request seats on the board of directors to take control without having to pay the high price of a hostile takeover. Guillemot, then, needs to convince shareholders that giving control to Vivendi will make the company less profitable so they side with him, hence the basis of all of Ubi's communication ever since gameloft was gobbled up.
Ideally this would also convince shareholders not to sell to Vivendi in the case of a hostile takeover but that'd be lot more unlikely given Vivendi's deep pockets.
Nostremitus
Member
Being publicly traded has nothing to do with whether or not its a family business as long as a Guillemot is at the helm.
Here's a list of the worlds largest family businesses, all publicly traded...
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-worlds-21-biggest-family-owned-businesses-2015-7
Sorry, but for example taking the case I know best from that list, Novartis, if having 3.3% shares (because that's what the Sandoz Family Foundation actually has) and a guy on the board of directors but a CEO unrelated to the family still counts as a "family business", then Ubi is in no danger of not being a family business anymore, since even with Yves Guillemot being kicked out of his CEO chair the Guillemot would still own over 20% of the shares and a spot on the board.
Because Vivendi will likely just use Ubisoft to park their debt carcasses and leave it to wither.
"But FyreWulff, they wouldn't do that to a company they invested in!" the general public would say.
But.. they tried to do that to Activision. The publisher/owner of CoD, WoW, and all those games? Yep, they tried to just use Acti to shove off most of their debt to make their books look good. Didn't care about legacy, people, or anything else. It was all about looking good for the next 3 months. They were willing to shoot one of the largest successful publishers in the back just to do this.
Activision basically went into panic mode and survived it by reverse-hostile-takeovering themselves.
Ubisoft doesn't have the money Acti did to get out of this situation.
tl;dr
if Vivendi pulls this off, Ubisoft is dead within a year.
Nostremitus
Member
I didn't say they'd stop being a family business. I said its a family business being swallowed by corporate interests. They are losing control to a larger corporation.
D
Deleted member 471617
Unconfirmed Member
If Ubisoft is taken over by Vivendi, they will be dead within a year. Vivendi has no business being in the video game industry and should get the fuck out. Ubisoft is one of the very few and rare publishers that actually develop new original IP's and take risks. If Vivendi takes over Ubisoft, im going to be one pissed off Ubisoft fan.
D
Deleted member 80556
Unconfirmed Member
There's a reason Activision looked for independence after some time. And there's a reason why after the purchase of Activision, we only got Call of Duty and the music genre essentially died in gaming.
I got Valiant Hearts, soooo, yes?
Just because you as an individual don't like their output doesn't mean they should be gutted.
Pretty much. I hope that the Guillemots succeed with this campaign, but I'm not too optimistic.
You can bet that all their new projects, even if full promise, will be cancelled for developing Ass Creed, The Division, and other franchises that turn record profits for them.
Hope you weren't waiting for more UbiArt projects or BG&E2.
Vulvasoft
Mass_Pincup
Banned
Ain't going to happen, the reason Vivendi is interested by Ubisoft/Gameloft is because they're the only big french video game publisher with worthwhile IPs, it would be counterproductive to sell those asset since they're trying to build around them.
Taking risks, lol.
I agree that Viviendi taking over Ubisoft would be a terrible move for everyone involved and the industry would be worse off for it, but let's be real here.
Out of all the other big third party publishers? Damn right.
That's why I think Ubisoft will try to sell them before the takeover, while they still can, to save those IPs and as a fuck you to Vivendi.
The short version is they just move or use other legal/accounting tricks to move the debt from one corporation to another. You can do this in various ways, like simply transferring the debt as a bought asset from one to another (you control both companies, so you can force the other to buy your own debt), another one is basically making a new corporation with the same name and sell just the IPs and other good stuff and leave the debt with the old corporation (this is what happened to GM, although that was a Chapter 11 bankruptcy structured plan - there's essentially "Old GM" that has all the debt, and "New GM" that has all the profitable assets and operations, even though GM never physically moved)
The more accounting minded members of GAF can jump in and go over deep details.
Shareholders follow them on twitter?
Unfortunately they would never get approval. Vivendi is paying top dollar for those shares. So the only way to sell the IPs piecemeal is if some pays way above market value for them. Otherwise it is not worth to the shareholders and the board because the value of their shares would depreciate.
But if Vivendi is only buying Ubisoft to offload debt wouldn't shares tank anyway?
Mass_Pincup
Banned
At that point they wouldn't care since Vivendi would have already bought their shares at a premium.
exmachina64
Banned
Who?
dead_lighter
Member
This. Mario and Ezio are all italian after all.
I'm implying that the takeover will retroactively shift the perception. Everything's relative.