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Ubisoft CEO Speaks out Against EA Move
Gamespot is reporting that Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has spoken out against EA's "hostile action". From the article: "Considering the industry practice of communicating informally about such decisions, we were disappointed, to say the very least, that EA chose not to inform us of their specific plans beforehand." Further, Voodoo Extreme is reporting that a financial report may suggest the French government is going to assist Ubisoft in staying out from under EA's thumb.
Due to very irritating interstitial advertisements, here is the text of the second article:
French Government To Protect Ubisoft From EA?
December 30, 2004 - An AFX Financial report suggests that the French government may take steps to protect Ubisoft from acquisition by EA, should they decide to expand their 19.9% ownership:
The heads of the studios fear that a purchase of Ubisoft by EA would lead to the disappearance of the last decision making centre in France for the video games industry, La Tribune added.
Ubisoft said last night it is not in talks 'at present' with EA about the US company's recent purchase of a stake. 'In light of recent news spread by the press, Ubisofts board of directors reiterates that, in the absence of information from Electronic Arts regarding its intentions, the latter's acquisition of 19.9 pct of the groups capital is unsolicited and currently considered as hostile,' the company said.
Les Echos newspaper reported yesterday that Ubisoft will gather together some of its largest shareholders next week in a bid to convince them not to throw their weight behind EA.
-- Andrew Burnes
- Leon Mergen
http://www.solatis.com
UBI can speak out against it all they want, but what they really need to do is give their current shareholders more reasons to hold onto the stock. Maybe they should have spent more time polishing Ghost Recon 2...
Isn't government interference a violation of France's WTO agreement?
The CEO's should decide it the old fashioned way-- controllers at dawn! UBI Soft, as the target, gets to pick the game...
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Maybe EA and Oracle should get together and swap takeover recipes.
Some call me Howie Feltersnatch
Why doesn't Ubisoft just send Sam Fisher to take care of EA for them? :)
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
... assist the reader by saying what this hostile action is, why it's occurring, where (France?) and so forth. The summary, as it stands, seems written for people who are already in-the-know, which is a foolish assumption in the face a global internet.
... it's not just for journalists any more!
Who, what, where, when, why, and how
France (and the rest of the EU) are already in violating of the WTO over the massive grants they've given, and are planning to give, Airbus. The US government says it's unfair, but they too have given (and will continue to give) massive grants to Boeing. I guess that complaint has got more to do with the fact that Airbus recently moved ahead of Boeing in number of aircraft being ordered, and the US is no longer the dominant player (IMO). Oddly enough, didn't the French also give a hand out to a server manufacturer a few weeks ago to keep them in business?
...the similarities... the Borg and EA!
Eh.. you don't get what a hostile acquisition is? It's not terribly complex, basically EA went under the table and acquired 20% of a competing shop's stock. Generally they will let them know what's going on before hand. The fact that they were hush about it is an indicication that they are attempting to acquire a 50.1% or greater stake in the company, thus gaining a controlling majority and initiating a "hostile takeover".
There's a bunch of nuances involved with the whole thing, but thats the "for dummies" version.
Naturally this is concerning to the precarious French government as they would lose their primary stake in the game industry to a US company.
I agree, and I didn't have any problem understanding the submission, but the original poster is right, it is uunnecessarily confusing.
It wouldn't have taken much to clarify that the "hostile action" was the sudden purchase of 20% of Ubisoft's shares by EA.
I've often been frustrated by similar submission, so I sympathize.
iana EA Employee, but it seems to me that EA Stopped being about games a long time ago... it's your typical board of directors type shop it seems to me now, who so happen to see videogames as a method of getting rich. I'm sure the people working on "the floor" care very much about their products, but I get the impression that at the top they will dop whatever they can to get the highest Return on Investment, not "make the best game possible"... I don't get the impression that they have any idea how to make the best use of the franchises they have other then sports and Sims, and even that is questionable. K done ranting, back to work for me
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot speaks his mind on the EA deal
With Electronic Arts the new owner of almost 20 percent of Ubisoft, you might expect that company's leader to wobble a bit in the unexpected limelight. Yves Guillemot does anything but.
Just five days before Christmas, with many game industry staffers already on vacation, Electronic Arts dropped an explosive bit of news on the wires. In a short press release, it acknowledged having purchased an estimated $85-$100 million worth of Ubisoft shares.
The move--a surprise to the vast majority of industry observers--gave it a 19.9 percent ownership position in one of its most daunting competitors. Wedbush Morgan senior analyst Michael Pachter told GameSpot, "I think EA is interested in Ubisoft's development talent and in its Gameloft investment [in wireless games]."
But is that all? "I don't know if EA wants to take them out," Pachter said, "but given that Ubi has a pretty strong set of licenses and great development--with a more Euro-centric sales profile--it's a combination that makes sense from EA's perspective."
Pachter clearly assesed the stock acquisition as something less benign than how EA had earlier portrayed it. "EA is not in the business of making passive investments in public companies," Pachter concluded.
Regardless of its motives, the builders of famous franchises that include Madden and Medal of Honor now own a block of Ubisoft shares second in size only to the chunk owned by the company's founders, one of whom is its CEO and president, Yves Guillemot.
We spoke to Guillemot shortly after the transaction was announced.
GameSpot: Yves, to most observers, EA and Ubisoft are arch rivals who compete for market share, mind share, shelf space, and talent. It's hard to believe the two parties can work toward common goals. Assuming all regulatory issues are cleared, your board of directors will have to acknowledge EA's wishes as they might other shareholder's. How do you expect this marriage to get on?
Yves Guillemot: Although EA and Ubisoft are both leading game publishers, I wouldn't say we are arch rivals. All players in the industry compete for market share, shelf space, and talent, but as the past few months have shown, the market is growing, and the more outstanding titles that hit the shelves, the more the market grows. So getting great games out there is a common goal that all publishers share.
GS: So how do you read the move by Electronic Arts?
YG: I have stated on the record that I view this action on the part of EA as hostile.
GS: Do you see malevolence at its core?
YG: Until we have further information we cannot say what EA's goals might be.
GS: How does having EA as a shareholder affect the issue of disclosure, specifically company strategy?
YG: In terms of the company's confidential strategy, that information is not provided to any of our shareholders. This has always been our policy, and we have consistently shown ourselves worthy of the confidence of our shareholders.
GS: Are there remaining shares of the company that are vulnerable to acquisition by Electronic Arts, and if so, is Ubisoft management considering options if EA were to become a majority shareholder?
YG: Ubisoft is a publicly traded company, with 22.8 percent of its voting rights held by the company's founders. Of the remaining capital publicly held, 13 percent of voting rights are in the hands of financial institutions and 44.5 percent are in the hands of small shareholders. The management is studying all its options under several different scenarios.
GS: Given this twist in the company's timeline, what does the future hold for Ubisoft?
YG: For the immediate future, we are still looking forward to a record-breaking fourth quarter, with the release of several titles which you [in the press] also seem to be eagerly anticipating.
GS: What about the long-term outlook?
YG: When looking at the longer-term, our only concern is the
Sam Fisher will infiltrate Electronic Arts headquarters under the cover of darkness. After gathering intelligence related to the hostile takeover, he will go to the roof for extraction. Alarms or civilian deaths will result in mission failure.
Tsk, tsk. America wouldn't even be here without France. They financed America's Revolutionary War for independence and saved us at the last hour in the War of 1812.
Josh
Just for clarification, you don't have to have a 50.1% or even a 50% stake to claim a takeover. Typically, anything in the 40% or greater range will give you controlling interest, as there usually isn't any one controlling interest with more.
There are quite a few companies out there who are run by a 30%(ish) controlling interest.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
Or in the words of Eddie Izzard:
Here's what I hear has been happening in France... Every now and then some non-French company wants to buy a French company. The French government immediately steps in and makes a second French company buy the first French company the foreign company was interested in thereby creating a much larger French company which is no longer small enough for the foreign company to buy. When a German pharmaceutical company (Germany has some of the largest in the world) wanted to buy a French one the French government got a separate French pharmaceutical company to buy it instead. The intended effect of all these forced mergers seems to be to get France back into competition with other countries.
If you don't believe me look into the history of France Telecom which purchased Wanadoo, Orange, and Equant (the last two were previously foreign owned but operated in France). The thing about the purchases of these is that France Telecom now owes a billion euros back to the government for illegal subsidies.
Another classic example of Little Man's Syndrome is Vivendi Universal.
Direct away from face when opening.
As opposed to USA's Microsoft Windows and extremely obese women? ;-)
Sam Fisher vs. Football players? My money is on Sam Fisher.
In France, however, management has priority in the law. You might think that the shareholders control the company through a board of directors appointing the CEO and others in management, but the truth is under law the equity owners are extremely limited in making the kind of company-saving decisions that they can in the US. The result is an anemic economy.
This is a seperate issue from the French government offering to become specially involved, but is relevant to EA's ability to affect Ubisoft in the same way they would any other company in the US inwhich they owned 20% of the shares.
There is a rumor that EA simply wants to get in on a new Ubisoft game. The premise of the game is that the player is the head of a French bank and collects fees from an Iraqi dictator who is supposed to be using the money in his account to pay for food and medical supplies for his people, but is really funneling it to terrorists and arms dealers.
You get bonus points for lobbying the UN to not sanction a war in Iraq so that you can keep collecting fees from the account.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041118-Having done so much with so little for so long, I now can do anything with nothing at all.
If you don't want to lose control of your company, don't go public - it's really that simple.
Everyone likes to play by the rules as long as they're in their favor, but as soon as someone else gets the upper hand and threatens your (insert precious item here) the rules suddenly become unfair and need to be circumvented. Human nature I guess. Hooray for "free" markets though - greed really is the best motivation for human endeavors, right?
in Heaven, the police are British, the lovers are Italian, the cooks are French, the engineers are German, and it's all organized by the Swiss.
In Hell, the police are German, the lovers are Swiss, the cooks are British, the engineers are French, and it's all organized by the Italians.
Sorry something about french and engineering in the same concept just eludes me.
Yeah, you better send that green statue in NY harbor back to France, before it topples over.
France does not want to lose France based companies.
It is good that EU countries are now subject to the same buyout and then layoff trend that the USA went through in the 1980s.
The loss of companies that move out of France + the loss of jobs from buyout/layoffs will force France to actually support a pro-business environment instead of a entitlement burdened nanny state.
The euro has greatly facilitated free trade, free capital, and personal freedom.
shame the gooks beat you good in vietnam though (though you probably won the unofficial underage girl rape contest)
fuckin' rambo wankers
Ubi's also got the Rainbow Six team... And they've got guns.... lots of them.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Wow!!! That looks like a quality pen. I wonder what the reserve is. I'm really suprised it has no bids. You should buy it!! Troll hata
I would've thought geeks would be more intelligent about these things.
You must be new here.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Napoleon came after the revolution. Don't try to tell me he was all about surrendering. Bad guy? yes. Pussy? no.
And yet, Napoleon's goal (independent of his method) was to overthrow tyranny and spread the spirit of the French Revolution throughout Europe. Interesting to look at this in a modern context, eh?
"Mostly, their troops are glorified police officers. Their troops did not see anything like the action the US Special Forces saw in Afghanistan."
I fail to see how you can say something like this, and not realize you're shitting on any serviceman whose job isn't exactly "first wave, front line, point."
It almost seems like some people are afraid of finding any reason to respect the French. Or something like that. There seems to be a subculture that carries some value assumption that the French are somehow bad, counter to American interests, or generally deserving of hostility or criticism. But that idea is only held within that subculture, and the rest don't even understand the premise.
But the important thing to me, is if you want to dismiss the contribution of anyone who is your ally in combat, who has soldiers in your military operation, you might as well be wiping your ass with the flag after you shit on the grave of a soldier. In my opinion, that is precisely what you did when you tried to squirm out of accepting that the French sent soldiers to fight alongside your army in Afghanistan.
If you can tell me what unit YOU were in, and what combat YOU personally saw in Afghanistan, and if you can give an eyewitness account of the cowardice and lack of contribution by the French, maybe I can hold a higher opinion of you. Somehow, I think you won't be able to do that, but I'll keep the option open.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
>My criticism is with the French government.
You have a funny way of expressing that:
"Mostly, their troops are glorified police officers."
That sounded to me, a whole hell of a lot like criticizing soldiers, not governments.
I'm just sick and tired of hearing about France this and the French that, as if they are some sort of enemy of the US. I don't know where it originated (maybe something Pat Robertson said, who knows), but what's strange is that the anti-French sentiment *persists*, and seems to be persisted by people who, if pressed, would not be able to make a cogent argument of what exactly is the matter with France. Whatever it is, was supposed to be so terrible that we can't even eat French Fries (A New Jersey invention, correct?), and we weren't even supposed to drink Champagne. But that idea was also supposed to be some kind of self-evident, obvious fact. Nobody has ever explained it to me, just repeated the whole "cowardly, surrender-monkeys" thing.
So when I get to your message, where you claimed to know the contribution of the French troops to be nothing more than glorified police officers, it raised my blood pressure a bit.
I still wonder where you're coming from. You're a soldier yourself. Seems like you of all people should know better. What are, for instance, MP's in Iraq supposed to think about that sort of thing? After all, they really *are* nothing but glorified police officers. Think about this please.
And maybe somebody can explain to me what makes France such an obvious goddamned scapegoat? I really don't get it. It will never be appropriate, in my ethos, to hold contempt for a nation that is supporting your own in a time of war. If they have boots on the ground in Afghanistan, they are to be held in precisely the same regard as any US soldier. They are, after all, in the same force, on the same side, taking risks and making sacrifices.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Maybe this will help. Mine is a soldiers complaint. As I said, I was infantry. However, there were times when I was in units that were turned into glorified police units. Almost to a man, soldiers hate it when their mission changes like that. I was trained for a specific mission--in my days it was killing Soviets. Taking me out of that paradigm sucked because I was untrained for it. It is more like I am commiserating with the French grunt than bashing him.
I agree that is the situation a lot of our soldiers are in right now in Iraq. And, if you asked them off camera, they would say "this sucks" Taking fire in battle is different...it is expected. Taking fire when you are helping to build a hospital somewhere is not expected. Both suck, but I was trained to handle the first, not the second.
My use of the surrender monkey comment was out of anger over the revelations that they may have been aiding Sadaam brutalize his people. The French government was awefully self-righteous when they were proclaiming their non-support for our military action due to concerns for peace. Reading some of the things I have been reading about their actions in the Oil for Food program makes me doubt they were honest. I think they were happy with the status quo because they were making lots of money. And, who knows, maybe I was just in a bad mood yesterday and felt like ranting.
By the way, I am definitely drinking champagne tonight:) No way I am going to let a little squabble with the French interfere with that.
Having done so much with so little for so long, I now can do anything with nothing at all.