How to Buy Ubisoft Stock (UBI): Complete Guide

Ubisoft is one of the largest developers and distributors of interactive entertainment services. It has a huge reputation in the gaming community, where it’s responsible for titles like Assassins Creed. The Guillemot brothers founded the company in Brittany, France, in 1986.

Ubisoft went public on the Paris stock exchange a decade later, with the company making several key strategic acquisitions, including Blue Byte Software and Red Storm Entertainment, in the following years. Ubisoft set up international operations, with headquarters in Morbihan and Montreuil, France, and satellite offices in Montreal and Shanghai.

The company was one of the gaming industry’s top independent publishers by 2011. Today, it’s recognized as an iconic publisher with several franchises in its catalog. Ubisoft posts revenues of 2,125 billion EUR, employing more than 20,000 people across all six continents.

This guide unpacks everything you need to know about Ubisoft Entertainment SA and where and how to buy Ubisoft UBI stock.

How to Buy Ubisoft Stock (UBI)

• Ticker: EPA: UBI
• PE Ratio (TTM): 70.26
• EPS (TTM): 0.65
• Earnings Date: Oct 26, 2022 – Oct 31, 2022
• Forward Dividend & Yield: N/A (N/A)
• Ex-Dividend Date: N/A
• 1y Target Est: 52.52

Ubisoft – A History

During the 1980s, the Guillemot family established themselves as a support business for local farmers in Brittany province, France, with the company moving into the UK to expand its business.

Claude, Christian, Gérard, Tyves, and Michel, were initially involved in the family business, in various roles, from sales to accounting and distribution, before going to university. After receiving an education in business, the five brothers returned to the family business.

After experiencing further success, the brother came up with the concept of selling CD audio media to the local farming community, along with computer equipment and software to help them automate their systems. This success led them to introduce computer and video game software to local markets.

In the mid-1980s, the brothers started a mail-order computer sales business, importing PCs from the UK for cheaper than they could source them for in France. The brothers formalized this business in 1984, naming it ‘Guillemot Informatique.’

The company originally sold its products through mail order, with French retailers being the brother’s biggest clients. By 1986, the brothers were earning around $5.8 million per year, with the brothers changing the company name to ‘Ubi Soft’ and moving headquarters from Paris to Créteil in June 1986.

By 1988, Ubi Soft had six devs working on their first game. The company released its first self-developed and self-published title, ‘Zombi,’ in 1989. The game was a smashing success for Ubi Soft, paving the way for further development projects. The company established a studio in Montreuil, hosting over 100 devs, with products targeting 5th generation consoles like the PlayStation and Atari Jaguar.

By 1993, Ubi Soft was the largest video game distributor in France.

Ubisoft IPO and Global Expansion

The company decided to go public in 1996, listing on the Paris Stock exchange under the ticker ‘UBI.’ The Initial Public Offering raised the company $80 million to help them to expand. Within two years following the IPO, the company opened studios in Shanghai in 1996, Annecy in 1996, Montreal in 1997, and Milan in 1998.

When the internet arrived on the scene in the late 1990s, the brothers founded a free-to-play online gaming studio, licensing the rights of GameLoft while increasing the company’s share price five times over.

The added injection of €170 million in investment capital allowed the company to acquire Red Storm Entertainment in 2000. This purchase came with the rights for the Tom Clancy franchise of games. Ubi Soft assisted Red Storm with expanding the franchise, bringing titles like ‘Ghost Recon’ and ‘Rainbow Six’ to market.

The company achieved a foothold in the American market after partnering with Microsoft on the ‘Splinter Cell’ title for the Tom Clancy franchise. This title was released on Microsoft Xbox in 2002, directly competing with the PlayStation Metal Gear Solid franchise.

The Learning Company’s entertainment division was sold by the Gores Technology Group in March 2001, including the rights to ‘Myst’ and the ‘Prince of Persia franchises. The deal also included the rights to titles published by Mattel Interactive, Brøderbund, Mindscape, and Strategic Simulations.

Ubisoft Montreal developed and published ‘Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,’ releasing the project in 2003. Ubi Soft released ‘Beyond Good & Evil,’ Ancel’s project after ‘Rayman’ simultaneously to Sands of time, with it becoming the company’s first commercial flop.

In 2001, Ubi Soft created its editorial department with the editor-in-chief, Hascoët. He would later change his title to ‘Chief Content Officer.’ Hascoët worked with Ancel on the ‘Rayman’ project in 1995, helping him in development tasks.

Ubi Soft announced its name change to the current ‘Ubisoft’ in September 2003, introducing the world to the company’s new ‘Swirl’ logo and branding.

Gaming giant ‘Electronic Arts’ purchased a 19.9% stake in Ubisoft in December 2004, with Ubisoft management claiming a ‘hostile’ acquisition of the company by EA. The brothers had failed to recognize they were dealing with a competitive environment, and the lack of management confidence led to fear among employees that a total takeover by EA was inevitable.

However, Ubisoft’s CEO managed to calm the fears, with EA selling its shares in 2010. Ubisoft acquired the NFL Fever, NHL Rivals, MLB Inside Pitch, and NBA Inside Drive franchises from Microsoft Game Studios in February 2005.

Ubisoft would create its most successful IP to date, the Assassins Creed franchise. The first title in the series released in 2007, the game was originally a sequel to the Prince of Persia franchise, developed by Ubisoft Montreal.

Ubisoft bought Atari’s ‘Driver’ franchise in July 2006, paying €19 million in cash in the transaction for the technology rights and game assets. In 2008, Ubisoft struck a deal with Tom Clancy for the perpetual use of his name and IP in future game titles.

In the same year, Ubisoft acquired ‘Hybride Technologies,’ an up-and-coming studio based in Piedmont, and Massive Entertainment from Activision. The company kept spending in the 2010s, purchasing the ‘South Park: The Stick of Truth’ game for $3.265 million from THQ.

In 2013, Ubisoft announced its expansion plans for its Quebec operations. Promising to invest $373 million into the Canadian branch of operations over the coming seven years. The investment comes as  Ubisoft attempts to capture more market share in the motion capture technology market while consolidating its infrastructure and online games operations at its Montreal operations.

Ubisoft followed through on its investment promises, opening studios in Quebec City and Montreal that employ more than 3,500 people. The company announced a security breach in its internal network in July 2013, resulting in 58 million accounts being compromised, revealing usernames, email addresses, and passwords.

However, Ubisoft stated that the hackers had not managed to secure any credit card information from its database. The company sent a directive to all users to change their account passwords and update their password protection on similar websites.

Ubisoft launched its Consumer Relationship Centre in March 2015, choosing headquarters in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The center integrates community managers and consumer support teams and operates seven days a week.

Ubisoft Technology

Apart from its games catalog, Ubisoft has five unique technologies. Let’s look at each of these components of the Ubisoft IP.

Ubisoft Connect

Formerly known as ‘Uplay,’ Ubisoft Connect is a digital rights management, digital distribution, multiplayer, and communications service operating on PC. The service launched alongside the debut of Assassin’s Creed II, acting as a rewards program.

Players could earn points to unlock in-game content when completing achievements. Ubisoft expanded the service into a desktop client for PCs and laptops and a storefront for Windows machines. Ubisoft would later separate this rewards program into the  Ubisoft Club program and integrate it with Uplay.

Ubisoft Anvil

Formerly known as ‘Scimitar,’ the Ubisoft Anvil is a game engine developed as proprietary technology by the Ubisoft Montreal division in 2007.

The team built the engine as part of the development project for the first Assassins Creed title. Since its launch, Ubisoft has relied on the Anvil for most of the Assassins Creed titles and other games in its catalog.

Dunia Engine

Ubisoft developed the Duni engine as a fork of its proprietary ‘CryEngine’ it developed in partnership with Crytek. Ubisoft Montreal developed the Dunia Engine to render outdoor 3D environments in its games.

Crytek initially created the CryEngine as a part of the ‘X-Isle: Dinosaur Island’ title it demonstrated at the 1999 Electronic Entertainment Expo.

Disrupt

Ubisoft Montreal is responsible for developing the ‘Disrupt’ game engine used in the ‘Watch Dogs’ games franchise. The development team built the engine from the ground up using a multithreaded renderer.

This renderer operates on fully-deferred physically rendering pipelines with tech twists allowing the engine to produce impressive visual effects.

Snowdrop

This game engine was developed in partnership with Massive Entertainment. Snowdrop is the engine powering Tom Clancy’s ‘The Division.’ There’s a ‘node-based system’ governing the system, with Snowdrop simplifying the process of rendering, mission scripting, AI, and the game’s user interface.

The Snowdrop engine is also featured in Tom Clancy’s ‘The Division 2’ as well as a host of Ubisoft games such as ‘Starlink: Battle for Atlas,’ ‘Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle,’ and ‘South Park: The Fractured but Whole.’ This next-gen game engine is also set to power the ‘Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora’ title, along with an open-world Star wars game.

Ubisoft Games

According to Ubisoft management, the team recognized connected sandbox games and provided a better user experience for players. It offers seamless switching between single and multiplayer modes, leading to Ubisoft pursuing a strategy of developing multiplayer games rather than single-paler titles to enhance the fun in the user experience. Ubisoft management internally refers to the time before its reinvention as ‘before the division.’

Ubisoft in Film and TV

The company launched ‘Ubisoft Film & Television’ in 2011 to replace the outdated ‘Ubisoft Motion Pictures division. The company initially used the studio for developing media relating to Ubisoft’s gaming titles.

However, the studio decided to branch out into TV and movies, producing high-quality visual effects for movies like the live-action Assassin’s Creed movie, released in 2016, and the ‘Rabbids Invasion’ TV series, launched in 2013. The studio is also used in the company’s latest production, ‘Mythic Quest,’ starring Rob McElhenney.

Vivendi Attempted Takeover

The French media conglomerate Vivendi has been active in the acquisitions market since around 2015. The company already has a large stake in Activision Blizzard, the biggest name in Silicon Valley gaming companies, ahead of EA and Take-Two.

So, it’s no surprise that Vivendi attempted a takeover of Ubisoft, considering the company’s potential in the market.

• Vivendi identified Ubisoft as one of its top acquisition prospects in 2017, with an estimated valuation of $6.4 billion by Vivendi. At the board meeting in September 2016, Vivendi acquired a 23% stake in Ubisoft shares, increasing the company’s voting rights to 20%.
• Given the size of the shareholding it owned, Vivendi made the motion to add its executives to the Ubisoft board. However, the Guillemot brothers argued against this request. They stated that the board should see Vivendi as a competitive force in the market, with ill intentions for the fate of Ubisoft.
• The board members seemed to agree, choosing to deny Vivendi a board seat. In late March 2018, Vivendi management struck a deal with Ubisoft to ensure the end of any potential takeover rumors.
• The Vivendi management team agreed to sell the company’s shares to the open market and to restrain from participating in any buying of Ubisoft shares for five years. Vivendi completely divested all shares in Ubisoft stock by March 2019.
• The Chinese media conglomerate, Tencent, scooped up the majority of the shares sold by Vivendi. After the sale, Tencent held approximately 5.6 million shares of Ubisoft stock or around 5% of the total shares outstanding in the float.
• The day following the sale, the Ubisoft management team announced a partnership deal with Chinese state-owned Tencent.
• The premise of the agreement was to bring Ubisoft’s gaming titles to the Chinese market, expanding its operations deeper into Asia.

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