Vivendi has been slowly making a play for Ubisoft for the past several years, buying up more and more of shares in the company so that they can wrest full control for themselves.
At present Vivendi owns a little over 25% percent of Ubisoft, but Reuters is reporting that the company is stepping up their share grab. One source speaking to the outlet regarding this matter stated that “Vivendi is moving to the second phase, everything will take place this year.”
This isn’t a takeover that Ubisoft is all that excited about and the company has been fighting it since Vivendi made their motives known. Corporate takeovers are always fun things!
What’s important to note regarding French law, is that whenever Vivendi reach 30% in total shares of Ubisoft they will be required to make some sort of offer for Ubisoft.
There is a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes that lead us to think these two companies are really fighting it out. Vivendi already own 25% of Ubisoft which gives them 22% of the voting rights in board meetings, but they still don’t have a seat on Ubisoft’s board of directors.
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