PARIS, Oct 5: Shares of French video game publisher Ubisoft surged by around 30 percent on Friday after a media report suggested China's Tencent was poised to join a potential buyout.
Bloomberg reported that the Chinese giant was considering a joint move with the Guillemot family, which founded Ubisoft and is still the main shareholder, after the French company lost half its market value this year.
Ubisoft has faced several years of turbulence after allegations of pervasive sexism, discrimination and workplace harassment began to emerge in 2020 and led to the departure of several top executives.
The French firm, best known for creating "Assassin's Creed" and "Far Cry", has also postponed several releases and endured an underwhelming response to its "Skull and Bones" pirate role-play game.
Tencent, the world's biggest game maker, already holds nearly 10 percent of Ubisoft's capital, while the Guillemot family owns around 15 percent.
Bloomberg reported that Tencent and the Guillemot family were now exploring several options, including a buyout that would take Ubisoft off the stock market. Contacted by AFP, Ubisoft said they had no comment on the Bloomberg story and Tencent did not immediately respond.
Ubisoft this year added to its longer-term malaise by posting disappointing returns for its latest blockbuster game "Star Wars Outlaws".
The firm said initial sales of the game were "softer than expected" in a statement in September, forcing it to revise its financial targets downwards.
The firm also announced the release of "Assassin's Creed Shadows", the next game in its flagship series that the firm was banking on to revive its fortunes, would be postponed by several months to allow its teams to "polish" the game.
"Our second quarter performance fell short of our expectations, prompting us to address this swiftly and firmly," CEO Yves Guillemot said in the same September statement.
The company is also under pressure from some of its shareholders.
At the start of September, Slovakian investment fund AJ Investments, which owns less than one percent of Ubisoft's shares, published an open letter expressing "deep dissatisfaction" with the management of the Guillemot family.
The fund called for the firm to open itself to an acquisition. —AFP
