Abstract

Ubisoft Entertainment S.A. is a French multinational video game developer and publisher, headquartered in Rennes, France and founded in 1986. Through the year the company have expanded and have become multinational. Now the company is reknown for developing games for several acclaimed video game franchises including Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, Just Dance, Rainbow Six, Prince of Persia, Rayman, and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. Ubisoft claims to be the third largest independent publisher of video games worldwide. Its worldwide presence includes 29 studios in 19 countries. The company has subsidiaries in 26 countries. Since 2009, the company has decided to adapt its licenses to new support (Cinema, TV shows, comics, etc.) and it started by founding his own comic publishing house called Les Deux Royaumes (The Two Thrones). In 2011, Ubisoft also created its own film division, called Ubisoft Motion Pictures, which creates shows and films based on the company's games. After a refocusing on “media and content” since 2012 and having sold businesses not related to its new goals, Vivendi appears deleveraged. However, in 2013, during their refocusing, it has sold its stock in Activision Blizzard (Vivendi bought Blizzard in late 90s and create a merger with Activision) for financial purpose, selling back a whopping 429 million shares to Activision at a cost of $5.83 billion. Now Vivendi is financially healthy again, it wants to come back in the video game industry and complete its offer of “media and content”, which already includes series and movies (via Studio Canal) and music (Via Universal Music Group). On October 14, 2015, Vivendi bought 6.6% of the Ubisoft capital for $ 140.3million. Ubisoft perceived it as a hostile takeover and a battle for the independence of Ubisoft began.

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