Reuters: Vivendi to buy out Ubisoft this year

[johnhoftb]

This also seems to be apart of Vivendi's strategy to come back into gaming in a big way and marketing. Could other companies become fodder for Vivendi like Gameloft and Ubisoft did?

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-vi...-idUSKBN17R0IO

French media giant Vivendi will accelerate acquisitions in video games and advertising this year to allay investor concerns about its strategy, mixed results and poor share performance, two sources close to the matter told Reuters.

Advertising group Havas and video games maker Ubisoft are expected to be the first targets as Vivendi moves into the next phase of its expansion, the sources said.

In three years, Chairman Vincent Bollore has spent nearly 15 billion euros ($16 billion) of Vivendi's cash on shareholders and acquisitions, including taking large stakes in Telecom Italia and Italian broadcaster Mediaset.

Yet Vivendi's shares have fallen by about 3 percent over the period and analysts are still awaiting more details from the company about how exactly its strategy will pan out.

Bollore is expected to defend his record at an annual shareholders meeting on Tuesday in Paris, a rare occasion for the billionaire to flesh out his plan to turn Vivendi into an integrated European media powerhouse.

On paper, merging Havas with Vivendi would be the easiest deal as the ad company is 60 percent owned by Bollore and run by his son Yannick, who joined Vivendi's board last year. Bollore is also Vivendi's biggest shareholder with 20.65 percent.

In the case of Ubisoft, which is 25 percent owned by Vivendi, resistance from its founding Guillemot family could potentially lead to a costly, unsolicited full takeover bid.

"Vivendi is moving to the second phase, everything will take place this year," one of the sources said, referring to Havas and Ubisoft.

"The logical thing would be to buy Ubisoft," the second source said, adding that Bollore would not buy the video games maker at any price and could consider other targets in China.

ITALIAN SETBACKS

Bollore, a 65-year-old businessman who made his fortune by building a family-run conglomerate with activities from logistics to electric batteries to advertising, is known for his capacity to turn businesses around and make shrewd investments.

But he has suffered a series of setbacks lately in Italy, a country he knows well through his investment bank in Mediobanca, raising questions about his capacity to deliver a rapid return on investments there and his long-term strategy.

"The lack of visibility over Vivendi's intentions regarding its existing stakes (Telecom Italia, Mediaset) and a potential acquisition of Havas could remain an overhang on Vivendi's share price in the near term," Lisa Yang, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, said in a note to clients this month.

Other analysts said Vivendi needed to lay out its strategy with greater clarity to attract new investors.

"Any increased transparency on investment policy, strategic view on ownership of telecom companies, and the vague Southern European strategy and vision for gaming stakes would be very welcome to existing and potential new shareholders," Deutsche Bank said in a note.

An Italian regulator ordered Vivendi last week to cut its stake in either Telecom Italia or Mediaset within a year, ruling that the French company was in breach of rules designed to prevent a concentration of corporate power.

FRENCH WOES

In France, competition for TV sports rights, including those for Formula One and the Champions League, is expected to be cut-throat and analysts worry that Vivendi's pay-TV subsidiary Canal Plus could lose them to rivals such as SFR Group.

Any such loss would just add to the difficulties at Canal Plus in France. Losses at the pay-TV's channels in that country alone cut 399 million euros ($434 million) off the group's core operating profit for 2016.

However, Vivendi expects Canal Plus' turnaround efforts to bear fruit in 2017 and it is targeting a 25 percent rebound in group core operating profit. It also expects group revenues to rise by more than 5 percent.

Questions are also being raised about Vivendi's governance. Proxy adviser ISS is recommending that shareholders oppose the re-election of Bollore and the appointment of his son Yannick as board members.

ISS has cited concerns about the lack of independence of the company's board and opposed 15 out of 25 resolutions that have been proposed ahead of Tuesday's annual general meeting.

The last time Vivendi was challenged by a minority shareholder was in 2015. U.S. hedge fund P. Schoenfeld Asset Management (PSAM) campaigned over Vivendi's perceived lack of transparency, unclear strategy and poor governance, but shelved those concerns after wringing more money from the company.

Vivendi agreed to increase payouts to investors by more than 1 billion euros following the investor's campaign.

[Edge-]

Damn man, Guillemot brothers are getting rekt by Vivendi.

[Aleksej89]

UBIFAIL is easily one of the worst companies in the world by every imaginable margin.

Perhaps vivendi can change it.

[MORGATH99]

heres the link just in case http://image.prntscr.com/image/0f276...6e3dba8891.png

cant see all the fuzz about it though

[dope_danny]

Why them of all companies? the term "ubishit" is now a common term. Their oversaturation of buggy "heres an open world map of the same 5 tasks on repeat, now buy a season pass" content has ruined their reputation. I mean shit thanks to a few things like Titanfall 2 you actually hear people saying nicer things about EA of all companies nowadays. Why not snap up some indie studios and some of the THQ licenses dying on the vine?

[Deleted]

Hopefully this take over destroys Ubisoft and their constant PC debacle ports and their parity to consoles, with Ubisoft gone, they can no longer set examples to other developers its OK to churn out crap ports on PC and keep Parity.

[Vapo]

UBIFAIL is easily one of the worst companies in the world by every imaginable margin.

Perhaps vivendi can change it.

They can only change it for worse...

[Jtbrig7390]

Hopefully this take over destroys Ubisoft and their constant PC debacle ports and their parity to consoles, with Ubisoft gone, they can no longer set examples to other developers its OK to churn out crap ports on PC and keep Parity.

Yes lets hope that a company gets destroyed and people lose there jobs because you don't like the video games that company makes......

Also hate to break it to you but Ubisoft doesn't set examples for anyone. Activision,EA,CDProject Red,THQ Notic,2K don't do things because Ubisoft does.

Ontopic: Sucks that Vivendi is focing there way into Ubisoft.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Vivendi taking Ubisoft doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing. It could just make them worse. Who knows really

[Tech614]

Hopefully this take over destroys Ubisoft and their constant PC debacle ports and their parity to consoles, with Ubisoft gone, they can no longer set examples to other developers its OK to churn out crap ports on PC and keep Parity.

Yes lets destroy one of the most innovative and diverse 3rd party publishers just because you don't like them

[Deleted]

Yes lets hope that a company gets destroyed and people lose there jobs because you don't like the video games that company makes......

Also hate to break it to you but Ubisoft doesn't set examples for anyone. Activision,EA,CDProject Red,THQ Notic,2K don't do things because Ubisoft does.

Ontopic: Sucks that Vivendi is focing there way into Ubisoft.

Did I refer to the game it self was bad? no

Did I talk about the company delivery of the product? yes

Which one is subjective and which one is ingrained in quality control or design decision?

Implementing an ingame feature I don't like personally doesn't mean the design that went into it was bad, it just means it wasn't for me, but when said developer physically does something that takes away from the product yet charge the full price for it and pull wool over peoples eyes, money that people spent with their hard earned cash then thats another matter.

Companies that produce broken products get slammed hard on and actually do lose business if they continue the practice, developers in the gaming industry are not immune to this, if the developers willingly have a broken design in the development of the game be it parity or just broken ports and Yet ask for money in return, do you think they are worthy of their job?

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Yes lets destroy one of the most innovative and diverse 3rd party publishers just because you don't like them

Diverse and innovative? they are on activision and EA level with the amount of AC, rainbow six games they have brought out, innovation doesnt matter if they deliver a broken product.

If they can do both well then its a good thing, but someone trying to sell you a full priced broken product (even outside gaming) is bad.

[Tech614]

Did I refer to the game it self was bad? no

Did I talk about the company delivery of the product? yes

Which one is subjective and which one is ingrained in quality control or design decision?

Implementing an ingame feature I don't like personally doesn't mean the design that went into it was bad, it just means it wasn't for me, but when said developer physically does something that takes away from the product yet charge the full price for it and pull wool over peoples eyes, money that people spent with their hard earned cash then thats another matter.

Companies that produce broken products get slammed hard on and actually do lose business if they continue the practice, developers in the gaming industry are not immune to this, if the developers willingly have a broken design in the development of the game be it parity or just broken ports and Yet ask for money in return, do you think they are worthy of their job?

Yet Ubisoft was one of the few AAA publishers to give a fuck what core gamers thought and have been changing for the better based on feedback.

Their quality of games have risen 10 fold since WD1/AC Unity drew massive draw back, because they actually listened and cared.

Of all the big name AAA publishers, Ubisoft is the one this industry needs, not the one that should be destroyed.

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Diverse and innovative? they are on activision and EA level with the amount of AC, rainbow six games they have brought out, innovation doesnt matter if they deliver a broken product.

Name their last release that you can point to as being "broken" and please provide facts and evidence that back up they're "broken".

Let me guess you're going to go back 3-4 years?

Their last Rainbow Sic game in Siege is a critical and financial success, most people praise it. Their last AC game in syndicate is considered one of the best in the franchise and the most polished. After syndicate they took a break from AC as they heard the feedback on the burnout of it, they didn't just force another one out like Activision will with CoD every year.

Again you sound ignorant as hell to the company Ubisoft actually is.

[Deleted]

Yet Ubisoft was one of the few AAA publishers to give a fuck what core gamers thought and have been changing for the better based on feedback.

Their quality of games have risen 10 fold since WD1/AC Unity drew massive draw back, because they actually listened and cared.

Of all the big name AAA publishers, Ubisoft is the one this industry needs, not the one that should be destroyed.

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Name their last release that you can point to as being "broken" and please provide facts and evidence that back up they're "broken".

Let me guess you're going to go back 3-4 years?

They didn't care, after AC unity was released, their share prices saw a drop, they responded to that and correlated the criticism with it, they simply linked the loss of share to it.

Watchdogs didn't really drop their shares, so they still went onto shit mode onto the next game because they got money.

[Deleted]

Vivendi taking Ubisoft doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing. It could just make them worse. Who knows really

But if current status is "won't touch their shit with a ten-foot pole", getting even worse is rather irrelevant for me as a consumer.

Objectively a new owner could easily improve things just looking at their workflow. While EA uses Frostbite for basically everything now, Ubi has at least six or eight in-house engines which all do basically the same.

[Jtbrig7390]

Watchdogs didn't really drop their shares, so they still went onto shit mode onto the next game because they got money.

They lissened to Feedback about Watch_Dogs 1 and WD2 was the result of that and IMO a amazing game. WD1 took itself way to serious and they learned not to do that again.

We get it you hate Ubisoft, but WD2,Siege are great games IMO.

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But if current status is "won't touch their shit with a ten-foot pole", getting even worse is rather irrelevant for me as a consumer.

Objectively a new owner could easily improve things just looking at their workflow. While EA uses Frostbite for basically everything now, Ubi has at least six or eight in-house engines which all do basically the same.

You clearly don't know shit about Vivendi if u think they are going to improve anything.

[Tech614]

They didn't care, after AC unity was released, their share prices saw a drop, they responded to that and correlated the criticism with it, they simply linked the loss of share to it.

Watchdogs didn't really drop their shares, so they still went onto shit mode onto the next game because they got money.

Sounds like you don't know what you're talking about since WD2 is widely considered to be a much better game and improved most areas WD1 got wrong.

Also I take it you're not providing any proof of these "broken" games Ubisoft has released recently?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

But if current status is "won't touch their shit with a ten-foot pole", getting even worse is rather irrelevant for me as a consumer.

Objectively a new owner could easily improve things just looking at their workflow. While EA uses Frostbite for basically everything now, Ubi has at least six or eight in-house engines which all do basically the same.

It will affect the industry if Ubisoft gets worse.

[zito]

Maybe they'll stop putting Tom Clancy title on every game like it means something good

[Verdugo]

Maybe they'll stop putting Tom Clancy title on every game like it means something good

Its a miracle he still keeps churning out games from his grave.

[Klingers]

This is like that time the Borg tried to assimilate Species 8472.