Ubisoft's recent game releases haven't been the most successful ventures as of late, causing the French company to lose over half its market value just this year alone. Now, a report states that the Guillemot family, the founders of Ubisoft, as well as China's Tencent are attempting a team up, possibly aiming to go for a buyout of Ubisoft.
The report comes from Bloomberg, who cites sources close to the company's dealings regarding this measure. Guillemot Brothers Ltd, that owns over 20% of the company, and Tencent, with its 10% share of Ubisoft, have reportedly started talks with advisors to "help explore ways to stabilize Ubisoft and bolster its value."
One of the options on the table is said to be taking the company private, and this route is reportedly "at an early stage" of talks within the company. Following the report of a possible buyout, Ubisoft shares rose drastically by over 31%, with it hovering in the €14 mark at the time of writing.
A number of major Ubisoft game launches in recent times, which include Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Skull and Bones, XDefiant, and Star Wars Outlaws, have not performed financially in the ways the company wanted.
Star Wars Outlaws' "softer than expected" launch sales is what prompted the recent Assassin's Creed Shadows delay as well, pushing the Japan-set action RPG to 2025. The company is also ditching its PC exclusives strategy and releasing all future games on Steam day-one.
As the buyout talks are reportedly still in the "early talks" stage, don't expect any major news about the company going private anytime soon, even if it does happen. It's currently unknown what kind of other options the founders are contemplating.
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