Gameloft’s founding family, the Guillemots, upped their stake in the French game publisher, as their ownership battle with Vivendi continues.

The family’s stake has gone up to around 19 per cent, and it now has 27.26 per cent of voting rights.

The Guillemot Brothers SE company said it “will take the necessary measures to avoid a creeping takeover by people who could challenge Gameloft’s strategy and global vocation to the detriment of the company and its shareholders,” according to a statement made to AMF, France’s financial regulator.

The company does not plan to take control of Gameloft, but does not rule it out either, the statement added.­

In November, the family increased its stake to more than 15 per cent and hired two banks to look for a ‘white knight’ that could help prevent a hostile takeover by Vivendi.

However, when it published its Q3 2015 results, Vivendi said it will continue its acquisition of Gameloft, as well as Ubisoft, and said it believed the move was not regarded as hostile by either company even though Ubisoft’s CEO called the move “unwelcome” in an internal e-mail.

In December, Vivendi’s stake in Gameloft went up to 26.69 per cent and it too has not ruled out an attempt to take control.

The media group said at the time its strategy is part of a “vision of operational convergence between Vivendi’s content and platforms and the Gameloft productions in the field of video games”.

Earlier this month, Gameloft and Japan’s GungHo Online Entertainment partnered up to “cooperate in the creation and distribution of high quality mobile games as well as in various areas of the digital entertainment industry”.