French conglomerate Vivendi has dumped its remaining stake in video game company Ubisoft, putting an end to a saga that began years ago.
As reported on VG247, Vivendi’s remaining participation in Ubisoft (about 6 % of the video game company’s shares) have now been sold, netting Vivendi a healthy $250 million US dollars in profits (about €220 million Euros).
This has likely left Ubisoft executives breathing a sigh of relief, knowing that giant conglomerate Vivendi is out of the company’s stock for good and now longer has its sights on the famed video game publisher.
This is because at some point Vivendi did appear to be going for a hostile takeover of Ubisoft, owning almost 30 % of the company at some point, until both sides reached an agreement involving Chinese company Tencent, which now owns a healthy stake in Ubisoft and is also publishing Ubisoft games in China too.
It’s hard to tell, though, what could have happened to Ubisoft had Vivendi completed its takeover bid. Would world-renowned franchises like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry have metamorphosed into something different with Vivendi ruling Ubisoft’s future, or would things have keep going at Ubisoft pretty much the same despite it being part of Vivendi?
This is something we’ll never know for sure, but as an avid gamer and fan of Ubisoft’s games for some time now it’s nice to know that the French powerhouse will be retaining its independence for a long time to come, and hopefully will be coming up with new video game ideas to please gamers in the long run too.