Gameloft rejects the takeover of Vivendi – Challenges.fr

The game publisher on mobile Gameloft said Monday, Feb. 29 that its board unanimously rejected the bid from Vivendi filed February 18, considering that it was “contrary to the interests of Gameloft , its shareholders, its employees and its customers.”

the Board of Directors has denounced such “lack of industrial rational of this proposed merger,” the lack of financial terms of the offer “and” the terms of the increased stake in Gameloft by Vivendi since September 22, 2015, who deceived and harmed the minority shareholders who sold their shares to Vivendi. “

” since the sale there is more than one year its games business, Vivendi, whose turnover is overwhelmingly generated by pay TV with Canal + and music with Universal music, no longer has any activity likely to bring synergies to Gameloft “, the statement said.

destabilization teams

the french media group was in fact totally disengaged from the American publisher of games video Activision Blizzard since the summer of 2013, affecting the way a little over ten billion. Vivendi also conducting an offensive for several months on another editor of video games, Ubisoft, whose CEO Yves Guillemot is the brother of Michael, who founded Gameloft .

“as an independent company, Gameloft has all the assets in place since its creation to continue the implementation of its industrial plan to take advantage of growth industry mobile gaming and in particular the very strong market growth of programmatic mobile advertising, “the statement said.

the game publisher also deplores” the destabilization of teams Gameloft resulting from this hostile bid and in particular its creative and very committed to the management independence of the company. ” Vivendi filed a takeover bid on Gameloft at a price of 6 euros per share, valuing the company at around 512 million euros.

the group led by Vincent Bolloré held on February 18, 30.01% of the capital and 26.72% of voting rights Gameloft , according to the AMF. The Board of Directors of Gameloft “to meet later to express his opinion on the terms of the public offer,” the statement said.

(with AFP)