Biz Daily: Vivendi's move on Gameloft and Ubisoft

hello welcome to biz daily I'm John Jordan so the story we've been talking about kind of speculating about really am today is vivendi some of India is a big French media company has an interest in in cable TV in filming in music and in games and it has done made an interesting move so it's been 140 million euros buying six forty percent of Ubisoft another hopsie well known French games company and it's also spent about 20 million euros buying six just on the more six forty six percent stake in game off the French mobile games company so what's interesting about this is both Ubisoft and gameloft have said the move from vivendi is unsolicited and they will both remain independent which obviously kind of begs the question the

vendor you've done this if for some reason not just an investment reason and and maybe making a move to merge those two companies so why this is interesting and why it makes sense is that gameloft is just makes mobile games and that's just what it does hundred percent and Ubisoft it's always been really focused on on a PC and console games starting get a bit more involved in in mobile over the last couple years but historically because both companies are run by brothers in the same family that there's all historically it's always been like an arm's length thing that came off with do mobile games and Ubisoft wouldn't and actually gameloft got a lot of Ubisoft licenses back in the data to make my book games off so there's always been a they thought a rumor a kind of speculation that that combining Ubisoft and gameloft would be a good deal because they are kind of complementary in 1 100 st. complimentary that you know you soft and game off do not compete really um obviously they're both French companies and the venue's

attention as well so softly like another another kind of a thing that would perhaps make it each of them to modem the reason perhaps they wouldn't merge is that gameloft are not in a good state at the moment so this you could probably make a state stable for someone could come in and like do something that's corporately with gaming off from kind of restructuring maybe x over G for something else but Ubisoft it's in pretty rude health is much bigger company and much more globally successful and as much with your franchises whereas it's coming trading its own IP for as gameloft has been much more focused to kind of a copycat games they're much more kind of one licensed IP the other interesting thing is kind of state it is the there's two brothers actually running the company so Eve killer mode runs you this often has done since I started and Michelle Gilliam own who's actually the elder brother runs game often has done since they started there's actually five brothers in the campaign in the kinemet family and that actually there's other companies have

been involved with so it's like other brothers who from peripheral pc peripheral and console peripheral color collect companies hooker a company and there's other mobile game app kind of companies and it's all a bit complicated all they come across shareholdings and in both companies in both ubisoft and game off the family the Gilmer family has kind of a lot of fairly large state so kind of fifteen to twenty percent of the shareholding is still with the family and that is in some way means it's it's unlikely that a unsolicited merger could could happen because the the family still has quite large control obviously if you have CEOs who against merger there makes it very difficult the interesting thing is with vivendi's move turning in case of gameloft it's now the fourth largest shareholder and if a bit kinda media company like when he comes in and it's not said what's the most of two companies but this is kind of something we're speculating about but it was seem to be a logical possibility from his move that if they got enough

the shareholders of Ubisoft Aang and gameloft agreeing with them that they could kind of structure and merger that would would be interesting I mean those companies a complimentary so so Ubisoft hasn't really got involved heavily in mobile games it's got more over the years but historically it's always let gameloft and through the mobile games naturally is licensed out some of its IP to gameloft on that on a fairly and friendly basis that game of could make games based on Ubisoft titles and that's telethons not happening anymore but it's still kind of a a a kind of a jigsaw puzzle situation where those pieces would seem to fit together quite well obviously would have to wait and see what happens is there's a even even you know vivendi spending when it's 160 million euros which is not a small sum of money but it's not um you know ye the sophs market cap is is in the billions of dollars so so vendee would have to spend a lot more money and actually kind of actively start getting building them in merger talks and trying to get shareholders on board for its move notta

cherez to do we don't care as long as chairs go up so obviously with a vendor buying these shares both ubisoft wears a game of shares of lept in the sense that kind of Sheldon's think I may be interesting deal going on here and does it matter for people who you know the kind of people who play games from use off and going off probably not it's not gonna make a big difference in terms of the games they make so in the short term there's only interesting move from the vendee we'll keep our eye on it it may just be a vendor you're doing it for their own investment reasons maybe you know a six seven percent shareholding in these companies is not a stupid thing to do in the sense that they think they could companies and in five years time maybe maybe more much more valuable but we'll wait and see I think it's easy it's one of those interesting kind of a kind of stocky color news vacuums where we can speculate with with them without anyone telling us were wrong because no one knows it what's what's going on at the moment but we'll definitely wait and see and come back tomorrow there'll be more news probably not as quite as

sticky as speculative and uses that but and come back and find out what's going on in the world of mobile games see you then