Ubisoft's Guillemot Talks Acquisition Possibilities

Addressing investor questions on its strong second quarter results call, Ubisoft said that the general economic decline might ultimately drive industry consolidation -- and CEO Yves Guillemot talked a little about Ubisoft's own plans. While he gave few details, Guillemot noted that Ubisoft would not engage any merger that would require it to borrow money beyond its cash on hand. "We don't want to borrow money too much to actually buy companies," said Guillemot. "We'll buy companies with cash or with shares if necessary." The Ubisoft CEO admitted it was difficult to project in only the next year and a half how consolidation might occur across the industry landscape. "In fact, because of the prices, everyone is really looking at what it has and how [companies] can perform with the products [they] have." "When this crisis [is] over, people will then again look at each other and maybe in a different way. But in the meantime, there will be lots of small studios, some brands and some people that have very good tech that will be available to actually sell, and there will be lots of possibilities for companies like ours to acquire teams, brands and tech that will help us to grow." Specifically, Guillemot was asked about the possibility of acquisitions in Asia. "Asia is a good opportunity," he acknowledged, "but the problem is still that the companies that have products like free to play products or MMO games are still extremely expensive." "So we are watching, but we haven't seen yet any transactions that could be of interest, and that we would be sure to actually push for the long term... at the moment, we don't have many things there."