Ubisoft, Gameloft to fight hostile takeover by Vivendi

Mobile game producer Gameloft and PC behemoth Ubisoft have both announced plans to fight a hostile takeover by Vivendi, the French conglomerate. We discussed these takeover attempts before here on An8BitMind, but to no one’s surprise, Gamesoft and Ubisoft are coming out swinging.

Gameloft today released a letter to shareholders advising them against selling to Vivendi, with some choice words:

“The financial terms of the offer which do not reflect Gameloft’s intrinsic valuation and future prospects, which is partly reflected in Gameloft’s stock price. The adverse impact on Gameloft’s staff due to the hostile nature of Vivendi’s offer and in particular on its creative teams and their management, who strongly value the independence of the company. The conditions by which Vivendi increased its stake in Gameloft since September 22, 2015, which the Board estimates they have deceived and adversely affected minority shareholders who sold their shares to Vivendi.”

Yeah, that’s pretty strong right there. Ubisoft is fighting hard, as well, attempting to enlist the Candian government, as well as Quebec government as a bulwark against being acquired by the French media giants. They are hoping to remain independent, but Vivendi has enough money from selling Activision/Blizzard stock, it might be a matter of tine. We’ll see if the game companies can resist getting pulled under the Vivendi umbrella.