There’s a curious new report on what the Guillemots and Tencent are planning to do with Ubisoft.
As reported on Bloomberg, the Guillemots may look to launch a new joint venture with Ubisoft’s biggest external investor. Ubisoft will then divest some of the company’s properties and bring it on to the new company.
The report continues that the final details, such as which games and other assets will go to the new company, are still under discussion.
Now, just as a reminder, all this talk of a Ubisoft buyout of the Guillemots started when a minority shareholder accused the brothers of conspiring with Tencent behind the backs of the other investors. Because of their positions, these shareholders have to keep working with both parties, but they definitely exerted pressure to force both to act more transparently, and demnonstrate good faith.
While this report is based on Bloomberg’s sources, we do know that Ubisoft’s Yves Guillemot officially told the public that they have assigned leading advisors, overseen by independent members of the board of directors, to review the company’s options.
To be clear, when Yves said these directors are independent, he clearly meant that he and his brothers are not involved in this decision making, and that the members are independent of them.
So the Guillemots and TenCent are definitely part of these discussions, but they are not the ones making these decisions. It is possible that Bloomberg’s sources are describing a situation wherein both parties are pitching this idea to these leading advisors, and perhaps those independent board members as well.
We would be remiss not to point out that this was also what Embracer Group decided to do, after a failed attempt to acquire venture capital forced the company to lay off developers and close several games and studios.
Embracer announced in April of last year that they would break into Asmodee, for their tabletop games, Middle-Earth Enterprises & Friends, for most of the licensed IPs they still have, and Coffee Stain & Friends, which is a hodgepodge of indie games & some small scale free-to-play and fully priced games.
For now this report suggests Ubisoft will split into two. This is not in the report, but obviously, TenCent will want to retain the greatest value for their half after the company split. So we shouldn’t be surprised if TenCent gets their hands on Assassin’s Creed, as well as Ubisoft’s other IPs worth their time, like Just Dance, Far Cry, Watch Dogs, and Rainbow Six.
As it so happens, Embracer hasn’t finished their own split, so if this reaches fruition, it may also take time before we see two Ubisofts. But if this plan saves jobs and projects, as well as Ubisoft’s different studios around the world, then it could very well justify itself.
