Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Buys 3.4 Per Cent of Ubisoft for $400 Million
Education and video games don’t often mix well—unless there’s a couple hundred million involved.
The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan has bought a $400 million stake in Ubisoft, which translates to 3.8 million shares, or 3.4 per cent of the company. The deal will allow French conglomerate Vivendi to sell all of their shares. Ubisoft is also a French company.
Ubisoft is the creator of massive game franchises including Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry. They also have development offices in Toronto and Montreal and have thousands of Canadian employees.
As part of the announcement, Chinese conglomerate Tencent will also be making a massive investment in Ubisoft with the purchase of 5.6 million shares, or five per cent of the company. Tencent is promising to vastly improve Ubisoft’s presence in China with the deal, a move that will also most-likely provide a lot of profit for the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
“The evolution in our shareholding is great news for Ubisoft,” said Yves Guillemot, CEO and co-founder of Ubisoft. “It was made possible thanks to the outstanding execution of our strategy and the decisive support of Ubisoft talents, players and shareholders. I would like to warmly thank them all. The investment from new long-term shareholders in Ubisoft demonstrates their trust in our future value creation potential.”
In September 2017, Ubisoft vowed to inject $780 million into their Quebec presence through the opening of two new offices and hiring of over 1,000 new employees. This announcement, along with the company’s already significant presence in Canada, most likely helped the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan decision to invest.
The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan invests in everything from BlackBerry to mussel and avocado farms. They have also acted as angel investors for companies like Snapdeal. The pension plan group represents the pensions for 318,000 active and retired teachers. They seek to achieve benchmark growth of 3.5 per cent year-over-year.
