Who Owns Ubisoft?

Ubisoft was founded in 1986 in Brittany, France, by five brothers from the Guillemot family, who had grown up helping their parents run a farming supply business. They began by importing and distributing computer software and hardware, then moved into publishing games for the Amstrad and Commodore platforms before opening their first internal development studio in 1994. The company listed on the Paris bourse in 1996 and used the proceeds to open studios internationally, starting with China in 1996 and Montreal in 1997, the latter becoming one of the largest game studios in the world.

The 2000s established Ubisoft as a top-tier publisher through acquisition and franchise building: Red Storm Entertainment brought Tom Clancy games in 2000, Blue Byte added The Settlers and Anno in 2001, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time launched in 2003. The defining release was Assassin's Creed in 2007, which grew into one of the best-selling game franchises of all time with more than 200 million copies sold.

The 2010s brought a corporate siege. Vivendi quietly accumulated a stake exceeding 25 percent between 2015 and 2017 in an attempted takeover the Guillemots fought for three years. The siege ended in 2018 when Tencent bought a 5 percent stake and Vivendi agreed to exit fully by 2022, leaving the brothers in control. Commercially Ubisoft expanded into live-service hits with Rainbow Six Siege and experimented across genres with The Crew, For Honor, and Watch Dogs.

The early 2020s were turbulent. Allegations of workplace misconduct in 2020 forced executive departures, and a string of commercial disappointments followed: Skull and Bones arrived in 2024 after nearly a decade of troubled development, Star Wars Outlaws underperformed, and The Crew was controversially delisted in 2024 after its servers were shut down. Under pressure, Ubisoft announced a sweeping restructuring, culminating in the November 2025 Tencent investment in Vantage Studios and a January 2026 reorganization into Creative Houses. FY2025-26 results reflected the transition: IFRS sales fell 21.8 percent to 1.4 billion euros and the company reported a non-IFRS operating loss of 1.04 billion euros, driven partly by restructuring and impairment charges.