Ubisoft’s current management turmoil may feel like it’s been going on for years, but it’s actually only been a few months. While their name has easily slipped from the public consciousness, it actually all got started by one Juraj Krúpa. Krúpa is the CEO of AJ Investments, a minority shareholder in Ubisoft who alleged last September that TenCent was colluding to sell shares back to the Guillemots without telling the public.
This complicated the issues in Ubisoft that already existed, as the shareholders were already unhappy with the consecutive quarters of losses that the company was suffering. That, in turn started going after the reputational damage wreaked from misconduct allegations that date all the way back to 2020. For the past five years, people have been saying that Ubisoft was mismanaged, for completely different reasons. But today, we may finally be seeing the endgame.
As reported by IGN, Krúpa has once again grabbed headlines accusing Ubisoft of continuing to hide information from shareholders. Krúpa pointed to a MergerMarket article claiming that Ubisoft is discussing selling their video game franchises to other companies, including but not limited to Microsoft and Electronic Arts.
At this point, it is clear that AJ Investments is deliberately antagonizing Ubisoft’s current management, but there also seems to have been something to their claims. Rumors have continued to swirl that the Guillemots have been discussing terms of sale with TenCent. The rumors were that TenCent rejected an outright sale without control of the company, and that the two parties considered spinning off a new company with Ubisoft’s most valuable IP.
Ubisoft shared this statement to IGN in response to Krúpa’s and MergerMarket’s claims:
“As we mentioned during our Q3 sales, the review of various transformational strategic and capitalistic options is ongoing.
The Board has established an ad-hoc independent Committee to oversee this formal and competitive process, so as to extract the best value from Ubisoft’s assets and franchises for all stakeholders.
Ubisoft will inform the market in accordance with applicable regulations if and once a transaction materialises.”
Ubisoft previously released a statement clarifying that they “appointed leading advisors” to review those options, and that it is being “overseen by the independent members of the Board of Directors.” So it may be the case that these were only discussions within Ubisoft, and that they haven’t actually reached out to Microsoft or other potential buyers yet.
On the other hand, all these rumors may be true as some of those board members may be leaking things. But as we understand that some of Ubisoft’s shareholders are sowing discord, these rumors may be merely serving to help their agenda. On our end, as gamers, we should be siding with the people making the games, and that’s not necessarily the management or the money people.
As we previously pointed out, AJ Investments has proposed that Ubisoft needs to have layoffs and possible studio closures to fix their business. Unfortunately, even if you may be rooting for the Guillemots to exit the company, that will not magically fix the company’s ills. We are hoping for what’s best for the developers, and after that, all those beloved franchises that are cherished in gamers’ memories.
