(Bloomberg) -- Ubisoft Entertainment SA fell the most since September after the French video-game company announced another delay in its popular Assassin’s Creed franchise and analysts expressed doubts about its takeover prospects.
The company also said that it had hired advisers to weigh options, including a potential deal, to help improve its share price in a statement late Thursday. Bloomberg News reported in October that the founding Guillemot family and shareholder Tencent Holdings Ltd. were weighing whether to take Ubisoft private.
Still, any potential bidder would have to turn around a company that’s had disappointing sales and production problems. Ubisoft said it’s pushing the release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows back to March 20. It was due to go on sale Feb. 14, which was already a delay from a planned November 2024 debut.
The extra time will allow the company to implement player feedback and “ensure an even more ambitious and engaging day-one experience” for the game after holiday sales of its Star Wars Outlaws game were lower than expected, the company said. Ubisoft said net bookings in the third fiscal quarter will drop to about €300 million ($309 million) because of the lackluster shopping season and the discontinuation of its XDefiant game in December.
Analysts said any takeover would be complicated by the company’s poor sales. The Star Wars game’s underperformance is likely to continue into another quarter, analysts at Bernstein said. Ubisoft’s massive workforce, commercial failures and cash burn in recent years limit the company’s attractiveness, CIC Market Solutions analyst Eric Ravary wrote. JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst Daniel Kerven said that if the new Assassin’s Creed performs well, Ubisoft would be able to explore options from a position of relative strength.
Ubisoft shares fell as much as 11% in Paris on Friday, the biggest intraday drop since September. The stock declined 5.4% to €11.67 at 12:47 p.m. and have fallen about 48% in the last 12 months.
--With assistance from Henry Ren.
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