Ubisoft eyeing an Activision-Blizzard style merger?

As the business media’s eyes remain firmly fixed on Activision-Blizzard and EA’s acquisition battle with Take Two, Ubisoft has been holding its own secret meetings with suitors – discussing potential deals that could propel the French publisher into the same league as its two biggest rivals.

However, the company’s executive director Alain Corre has told MCV that the firm is in no hurry” to emulate the industry-changing consolidation happening at the very top of the trade – as it can be very damaging to a major global company”.

Corre also admitted that the firm is monitoring the movements of EA and ‘Actiblizz’ very closely”.

Corre told MCV: We have been meeting everybody all the time over the last few years to see if there are any synergies [with a view to a merger]. We are very aware of what we have, our strengths and our DNA. As for a match, who knows? We are always talking to everybody. But for the present time, we are proving to be successful and so we’re in no hurry.”

He added: We are looking at Activision-Blizzard and EA/Take Two very carefully. You have two big guns with ambitions of between four and five billion dollars of revenue in a year. We have announced a €1 billion revenues target for this year, so there’s a big difference between us and them.

Our idea is to increase the speed of our growth organically, whilst looking at other opportunities for external growth within a certain limit. It’s sensible. We feel that mergers and integration is something that can be very damaging to a global company.”