Ubisoft shares pop 9% on revised Microsoft-Activision deal

Shares of the French crippled shaper Ubisoft popped 9% successful Europe trading Tuesday aft Microsoft submitted a new deal for the takeover of Activision Blizzard to effort and appease wary U.K. regulators.

The U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority confirmed it blocked the original $69 cardinal woody that Microsoft archetypal enactment guardant successful January 2022. The acquisition has besides faced regulatory challenges successful the U.S. and Europe, but the CMA has been the toughest professional of the takeover, citing concerns that the woody would hamper contention successful the nascent unreality gaming market.

The CMA said Microsoft and Activision Blizzard person agreed to a new, restructured agreement, which the CMA volition present analyse with a determination deadline of Oct. 18. As portion of the caller deal, Microsoft volition not get unreality rights for existing Activision Blizzard PC and console games, oregon for caller games released by Activision Blizzard during the adjacent 15 years, the CMA said. Instead, these rights volition beryllium divested to Ubisoft prior to Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

"The statement provides Ubisoft with a unsocial accidental to commercialize the organisation of games via unreality streaming," Brad Smith, Microsoft's president, said successful a blog post. "The statement volition alteration Ubisoft to innovate and promote antithetic concern models successful the licensing and pricing of these games connected unreality streaming services worldwide."

Ubisoft publishes fashionable games from the Assasin's Creed, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six and Far Cry franchises.

The restructured woody is intended to supply an autarkic 3rd enactment with the quality to connection Activision Blizzard's gaming contented to each unreality gaming work providers, including Microsoft itself. Ubisoft offers unreality games connected services similar Amazon Luna and Nvidia's GeForce Now, which vie with Microsoft's Xbox streaming service.

Smith said Ubisoft volition compensate Microsoft done a "one-off payment" and a "market-based wholesale pricing mechanism" that includes pricing options based connected usage.

--CNBC's Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report