Tencent's latest deal will help Ubisoft fend off takeover bids from larger corporations—like Tencent

pcgamer.com:

Tencent is China's largest tech company and has long had its sights set on Ubisoft. It's not alone in this: as the industry consolidates, the French publisher is one of the largest and most attractive targets out there, with a public valuation of roughly $5.3 billion and globally recognised brands like Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and the Tom Clancy games.

In June Tencent looked to increase its existing 4.5% stake by making a megabucks offer(opens in new tab) to Ubisoft shareholders of $101.84 per share: a price that represented a huge premium over stock that so far this year has averaged a price of less than half that. In other words, this is the kind of corporate aggression that won't take 'no' for an answer.

A complicated element, however, is that Ubisoft is a public company but remains under the control of the Guillemot family, who founded the publisher and through a holding company own a 16% stake in Ubisoft that comes with unique voting rights. That is, the Guillemots own approximately 1/6th of Ubisoft economically, but have a much bigger say in how the company is run than such a stake would otherwise have.

Tencent and the Guillemots reportedly sat down in May to talk turkey, with an insider telling Reuters that «Tencent is very determined to nail down the deal as Ubisoft is such an important strategic asset for Tencent».

The Guillemot family has previously shown it wants to retain control of Ubisoft, most notably in fighting tooth-and-nail to stop a hostile takeover from Vivendi (which eventually gave up and sold all of its Ubisoft shares back to the publisher). The Guillemot fightback against this deal was helped by investments from, among others, Tencent.

Now Tencent has announced a large investment in the