Tencent Holdings is raising its stake in Ubisoft Entertainment SA in a deal that values France’s biggest games developer at about $10 billion, as deep-pocketed Chinese tech majors continue their overseas search for growth.
Interest in Ubisoft comes as the world’s largest games firm by revenue counters slowing growth at home with purchases including 16.25% of Japan’s “Elden Ring” developer FromSoftware announced just a week ago – the same time domestic rival NetEase said it would buy French games maker Quantic Dream.
The latest deal makes Tencent Ubisoft’s single biggest shareholder with an overall stake of 11%, which can be further increased to as much as 17%. It also values the maker of the “Assassin’s Creed” and “Tom Clancy’s” video game franchises at $10 billion, or around 80 euros per share, well above Tuesday’s stock price closing level of 43.5 euros.
The move also caps a difficult four-year period at Ubisoft, where there has been a succession of new game delays and sexual harassment allegations that led to a revamp of top management. The firm’s share price dropped in that time from about 100 euros to less than 44 euros on Tuesday.
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