— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) September 6, 2022 Ubisoft will not be purchased by Tencent. Instead, the parent company, Guillemot Bros, will be where Tencent is investing. An investment of €300 million will be from Tencent, representing a 49.9% stake. This investment is going into Guillemot Bros Limited, which has the largest stake currently at Ubisoft. For a more thorough breakdown, Tencent’s investment in Guillemot Brothers Limited amounts to €300 million (€200 million share acquisition and €100 million capital increase), at an implied valuation for Ubisoft of 80€ per share. There aren’t any boardroom seats from Tencent in either company, though, so Ubisoft’s decision-making will still be their own. Tencent is allowed to raise its Ubisoft stake to 9.99%, though, which is more than double its current value. Part of the agreement looks to bring “several” Ubisoft games to mobile platforms and Ubisoft’s PC library to China’s marketplace. For the record, a broader marketplace isn’t a problem at all; it means more people can reach out and try Ubisoft’s latest games. This, however, could come with a consequence of some content being unavailable in specific regions, but that wasn’t confirmed to happen. Ubisoft Connect currently isn’t available in China as of the time of writing, for one. So, Tencent’s investment could exist to make the platform available in the region. Something that should be worth noting is that the game company’s stock price has managed to increase after this deal with Tencent was announced. As reported by SeekingAlpha, the company’s stock has risen 14% in U.S. trading after closing up 0.5% in Paris trading Tuesday. That said, the game developer’s projects will probably be reaching a broader marketplace, if anything. Whether it’ll come with its own controversies and issues, we don’t know just yet.
