Tencent Acquires 49.9% Minority Stake in Ubisoft's Guillemot Brothers - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 06 September 2022 / 2,836 Views
Ubisoft announced Tencent has acquired a minority stake in Guillemot Brothers Limited, the company that is run by Ubisoft's co-founders and has the largest stake in Ubisoft.
Tencent has invested €300 million in Guillemot Brothers Limited for a 49.9 percent economic stake in the company. This will give Tencent five percent voting rights.
Guillemot Brothers Limited with the investment has the potential to increase its stake in Ubisoft up to 29.9 percent. Ubisoft’s Board of Directors has allowed Tencent to increase its direct stake in Ubisoft from 4.5 percent to 9.99 percent. Tencent will not be able to sell its shares in Ubisoft for five year and will not be allowed to increase its stake above 9.99 percent for a period of eight years.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Tencent = communist dictatorship
Great, many people in the video games industry are lefties anyway. Perfect fit.
unfortunately you are not wrong.
It was pretty clear that Ubi was looking for an injection of cash.
Yes, but this actually sounds like a way for the founding family to get some cash out of their holdings without giving up significant control over Ubisoft.
True as well. But seems like part of the money will be used to increase the ownership of the holding family over the publisher.
Yes. Sounds like the Guillemot company will remain controlled by the founders, while Tencent gets a stake, and Guillemot may buy a larger stake in Ubisoft.
Didn't they recently increase their stake in Ubisoft, like this year? They really pushing for Ubisoft, I wonder why? Maybe they want to learn some of Ubisoft UI structure.
It's almost like a holding's company wants more stake in the games industry...
Well will rule out a Ubisoft buyout by Microsoft I guess, or at least make it very unlikely. Oh well there are plenty of publishers left to buy for Microsoft.
Or Sony or any other for the next 5 years I think.
That could happen and we know Tecent is on a buying and Ubi was talking in a way that showed interest in being bought.
My take is the same as @VAMatt , the Guillemot family see selling a stake in their holdings to Tencent as a cheap way for them to potentially increase their stake in Ubisoft while still keeping enough to retain control.
In regard to the future who knows, but if the Guillemot family do in fact use the money to increase their stake in Ubisoft then I see it as a signal that this isn't a prelude to a future sell out but quite the opposite and they are using the sale to help them further entrench the family and their legacy with Ubisoft.
If Ubisoft didn't become shit over the years, I might care.
I like their current AC more than the originals.
My biggest issue with modern AC games is the campaigns take too long to finish. Having tons of content is great, but its so much filler.
The games before Origins could generally be finished in under 20 hours and the side content was actually okay. Also, they really moved away from the stealth stuff.
very fair criticism.
