Vivendi was “very pleased” with the success of its public tender offer for shares of Gameloft, thanks to which it has 61.71 per cent share capital and at least 55.61 per cent voting rights for the French game publisher.

Vivendi will appoint the majority of the directors to the board of Gameloft in line with the games company’s annual shareholders meeting on 29 June, it said in a statement.

The preliminary results of the tender offer were published by AMF, the French securities regulator.

The offer will now be reopened on identical terms (€8 per share, valuing the target at about €680 million) to give shareholders who have not yet tendered their shares another opportunity to do so.

In a message to Gameloft employees, Arnaud de Puyfontaine, CEO of Vivendi, and COO Stephane Roussel said: “We are convinced that Gameloft, with Vivendi’s backing, can be more ambitious in its growth plans. In a rapidly-evolving market, your company, which needs industrial and financial backing to develop, will be able to count on our full support and commitment.”

They said that “the joining of Vivendi and Gameloft offers opportunities for cooperation in many areas: the co-creation of content, the development of new franchises, the building of wider communities and audiences and the pooling of our distribution networks, among other examples”.

According to them, Gameloft’s employees will take part in “a great collective adventure as Vivendi pursues its ambitious redeployment in content and media,” adding that “we, like you, are working on the development of innovative formats adapted to the all-mobile generation”.

Earlier, Gameloft said Vivendi does not have any specific know-how in the video game industry since the sale of Activision one year ago, and that its media properties would “bring limited revenue synergies”.

In February, Vivendi had launched an offer for Gameloft shares at a price of €6 each, and then increased its bid to €7.20 per share, but both offers were dismissed by Gameloft.

Meanwhile, earlier in the month Vivendi increased its stake in game publisher Ubisoft, controlled by the same family that used to control Gameloft, to 17.7 per cent, and is looking to have representation on its board.

Last year in an internal email, Ubisoft’s CEO said Vivendi had a reputation for “aggressively pursuing companies within the entertainment sector” and described its actions as “unwelcome”.