Ubisoft Buying Back Its Own Stock to Prevent Vivendi Takeover

The company is looking to buy-back 10% of its shares.

By Hope Corrigan

Ubisoft has announced a buy-back program in order to prevent French media conglomerate Vivendi from taking over the company.

The games company has granted a mandate which will allow it to buy back a total number of 4 million shares until December 29 2017. Once the shares have been repurchased they will be canceled by Ubisoft, which means they will have no value and cannot be reissued into the market.

Ubisoft heads Michel and Yves Guillemot have been fighting a potential takeover from Vivdendi for over a year after a hostile takeover bid was backed by Gameloft.

Reports earlier this year showed that Vivdendi already owned 25% of Ubisoft which could later have increased to 30% forcing the company to bid for an Ubisoft takeover under French law.

This buy-back program from Ubisoft will utilise an unnamed investment services provider and allows the company to regain 10% of its shares.

Hope Corrigan is an Australian freelance writer for IGN. You can follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

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