Ubisoft investor wants to dethrone Ubisoft's founders so Ubisoft can lay more developers off

rockpapershotgun.com:

Commence Star Wars rolling prologue screen: A minority Ubisoft investor has written an open letter to Ubisoft's board outlining their "deep dissatisfaction with the current performance and strategic direction of the company" and threatening a full-blown coup against the Guillemot brothers, Ubisoft's founders, and their backers at Chinese juggernaut Tencent.

In the letter (via GamesIndustry.biz) Juraj Krupa of Sloakian hedgefund AJ Investments and Partners cites the delaying of future instalments of Rainbow Six: Siege and The Division together with a lowered revenue outlook for Q2 2024 as cause for shareholder upset, noting that Ubisoft's share price has fallen by over 40% since last year. Accordingly, Krupa wants the board to "take Ubisoft private or allow it to sell to strategic investor", who will "get new air into" Ubisoft's videogames by, amongst other things, carrying out a bunch of layoffs. They're giving the board 60 days to reply.

AJ Investments are even now talking to other shareholders with a view to overthrowing the Guillemots. They're going to "use the French minority law to collect enough shareholders to start a proxy fight and initiate SALE PROCESS of Ubisoft to increase shareholder value for all shareholders". In particular, Krupa is calling for long-term CEO Yves Guillemot to be given the boot.

"The main reason why the valuation is so low compared to the peers is that Ubisoft at current state is mismanaged and shareholders are hostages of Guillemot family members and Tencent who take advantage of them," the letter reads. "Management is focused on pleasing investors with beating quarterly results and not focusing on long-term strategy to provide exceptional experience for the gamers."

AJ Investments appear to be new kids on the block as Ubisoft minority shareholders. According to Krupa, "we started our Ubisoft position couple weeks ago and are still adding to it". They do, however, boast of their "extensive knowledge about the gaming