Since October 2015, the French multimedia company known as Vivendi has been steadily creeping up on Ubisoft. Vivendi now owns 25.15% of the company and 22.92% of its voting rights, putting them even closer to taking over Ubisoft – even though Ubisoft has been doing everything to keep the multimedia company at bay.
To fight off a hostile takeover from Vivendi, Ubisoft began buying back their shares. Within the last nine months, Vivendi has more than doubled their ownership of Ubisoft shares. Once Vivendi hits 30% of share ownership, French law dictates that they must make a mandatory takeover bid and pursue a controlling stake.
It appears as though Vivendi is very close to reaching their goal.
According to accounts, the multimedia company has been sneaking around offering more and more money for stocks in the company.
Vivendi began at owning 10% of Ubisoft's shares, but they have slowly been taking more and more. In February they jumped to 15%, then to 20% in June. The multimedia company has jumped to owning upwards of 22.8% of Ubisoft, with 20% of the voting rights in their hands. In November, Vivendi made another leap to 24% of shares and 21% of voting rights.
