Still under threat of Vivendi takeover, Ubisoft aims to expand its board

Still under threat of a takeover by Vivendi, French game company Ubisoft announced today that it will push for the nomination of two new independent directors in an effort to maintain an independent majority on its board of directors.

For devs keeping an eye on the company, what this basically means is that at Ubisoft's annual shareholder's meeting in late September it will say goodbye to one independent director (Pascale Mounier) and nominate two more in her place: Corinne Fernandez-Handelsman and Virginie Haas, both experienced French entrepreneurs.

If successful, this expands Ubisoft's board by 1 (to 11 seats total) and ensures the majority of its seats (6 of 11) are held by independent directors, aka people without any financial stake in the company.

Ubisoft did basically the same thing this time last year; while no mention of Vivendi (which is reportedly planning a takeover this year) was made, it's possible that expanding the Ubisoft board and establishing an independent majority would make it harder for stakeholder Vivendi to push for representation on the board.

The French multinational has previously stated it intends to get onto the Ubisoft board "in due time." Vivendi had the opportunity to do so during Ubisoft's 2016 shareholder's meeting, but ultimately held off.