According to a report by Reuters, Tencent is trying to significantly increase its stake in the game publisher Ubisoft. In 2018, Tencent had already acquired 5 percent of Ubisoft shares, now the Chinese company wants to become Ubisoft's largest single shareholder and is willing to pay a high premium for it.
Surcharge of 127 percent offered
It is not yet known exactly how many shares Tencent wants to acquire. The French founding family Guillemot currently holds the largest share with 15.9 percent of the shares. In order to talk about selling these shares, Tencent representatives are said to have traveled to France in May and sought talks with the family of company boss Yves Guillemot. Tencent reportedly bid up to $101.84 per share, up 127 percent from the three-month average Ubisoft share price of just $44.81. Ubisoft's enterprise value is currently around $5.3 billion. After Tencent's plans became known, the value of the share has already risen by 15 percent.
Ubisoft has so far resisted takeovers
< p class="p text-width">In the past, Ubisoft has always been able to fend off a takeover by other publishers. Electronic Arts in 2004 and Vivendi in 2015 unsuccessfully tried to take over the French publisher and game developer. However, in April there were signs that this attitude was changing after scandals and failures and that the Guillemot family could be looking for an exit strategy that would make Ubisoft a takeover candidate.
Tencent also involved in Epic Games
Almost 80 percent of Ubisoft shares are in public circulation – Tencent will also try to acquire some of these. Ubisoft is not the first publisher and developer that Tencent has invested in. Tencent also holds shares in companies such as Epic Games, Riot Games, Supercell, Sumo Digital and Frontier Developments.
Games console with Logitech
Just two days ago, Logitech and Tencent announced that they were working together on a mobile game console for cloud gaming, which should be released later this year.