According to reports, Ubisoft is in the process of being bought by a private equity group. According to Bloomberg (via Kotaku), two of the world’s largest private equity companies, Blackstone Inc. and KKR & Co., have begun evaluating the French publisher for a possible acquisition.
Additionally, Kotaku says that numerous current and former top Ubisoft developers feel a sale is likely, given the publisher’s dwindling stock price and production concerns.
Additionally, it adds that Ubisoft has employed multiple consulting companies over the last few years to analyze various aspects of the business in preparation for a sale.
As rumors of the potential acquisition spread across the financial sector, Ubisoft’s stock price rapidly increased. Despite this, Ubisoft’s market capitalization is still around 35% lower than a year ago due to intense competition and poor output.
Ubisoft had resisted a hostile acquisition bid by French media behemoth Vivendi in 2018, but it looks as though the publisher’s CEO, Yves Guillemot, has changed his mind.
This might be due to his son Charlie Guillemot’s departure from the firm or the tsunami of sexual misconduct charges that have dogged the publisher for years.
Following those charges, Ubisoft committed to a company-wide change in 2020. Ashraf Ismail’s resignation followed this as creative director of Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla following claims of an extramarital affair.
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Guillemot sent an internal message at the time, indicating that he was “profoundly impacted” by what he saw on Ubisoft’s internal messaging system, Mana.
“I’ve convened a meeting of all of my direct reports to discuss this matter and your feedback. I’d like us to do a comprehensive evaluation of our systems to ensure that such occurrences do not occur again,” he said.