After Declaring Partnership Sales As Revenue, Ubisoft Used Tencent Money To Make Amends For Breaching Loan Agreement
After Ubisoft declared sales from a partnership as revenue, auditors demanded they make amends for breaching a loan agreement. The French video game publisher then agreed to repay the loan early, by using money from Tencent’s investment into Vantage Studios.
While Ubisoft was due to release their half-year earning results on November 13th, they suddenly postponed it and halted trading. As verified by VGC, an internal email from the company’s Chief Financial Officer told staff, “Due to legal regulations, we can’t share more information with you at this time.”
“To limit unnecessary speculation and market volatility during this short delay, we have asked Euronext to suspend the trading of our stock until the results are announced.” This didn’t stop insiders claiming Ubisoft had been acquired shortly thereafter, but this was soon disproven.
As reported by Daniel Zuidijk of Bloomberg, Ubisoft admitted to being in breach of a loan agreement. Auditors had demanded Ubisoft delay “recognizing” their revenue from a recent partnership, and forced Ubisoft to restate what their fiscal accounts actually were.
Specifically, the auditors identified that income stemming from a partnership had been improperly recorded as revenue under the terms stipulated by International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). This in turn violated a loan agreement as of September 30th.
Ubisoft finally declared their First-Half 2025-26 Earning Figures on November 21st. They clarified therein that they would repay the loan early to address the problem, handling the outstanding principle of an estimated €286 million ($330 million) after completing a €1.16 billion ($1.33 billion) deal with Tencent.
Tencent has continued to invest into Ubisoft since 2018, and currently own 49.9% of Guillemot Brothers Limited (which in turn holds part of the Guillemot brothers’ ownership of Ubisoft). Sources have also claimed that Ubisoft and Tencent were considering buyouts, before they created a co-owned $4.3 billion subsidiary with their biggest IPs.
This subsidiary, later revealed to be Vantage Studios, has been finalized, and announced in a press release also released on November 21st. The completion of the studio resulted in the aforementioned €1.16 billion.
While Bloomberg reported that shares fell 5.6% when trading resumed on the 21st, but soon rebounded 3% by 10:00 a.m. Since the start of the year, shares are down 48% however. Within Ubisoft’s First-Half 2025-26 Earning Figures, net bookings are up 20.3% year-on-year (exceeding their expectations by €40.8 million, or $47 million).
