You may have heard rumors about Tencent being about to acquire Ubisoft or a controlling stake in the French company, but they were at least grossly exaggerated.
The Chinese giant has acquired a minority (49.9%) passive stake in Yves Guillemot’s Guillemot Brothers Limited, with a €300 million investment.
That being said, this gives Tencent only 5% voting right in the company and no member on the Boards of Directors, so Guillemot Brothers Limited remains exclusively controlled by the Guillemot family, and Tencent doesn’t get any consent or veto rights over the business.
The juicier part of this is that Ubisoft has authorized Tencent to increase its stake in the company from 4.5% to 9.99%. Just like for GBL, this doesn’t give the Chinese corporation any operational voting rights nor any members on the Board of Directors.
Tencent won’t be able to sell its shares for the next five years, nor it will be able to increase its stake beyond 9.99% for the next eight years.
The press release included a comment from Yves Guillemot itself.
we also hear from Tencent’s president Martin Lau.
