PARIS: Vivendi Chief Operating Officer Stephane Roussel is set to be named as Gameloft's new chairman and chief executive officer after a hostile takeover battle, a source close to the matter said on Wednesday.
Roussel is among the five new Gameloft board members that were named on Wednesday at the company's annual shareholders meeting, following Vivendi's take over which left it owning about 95 percent of the mobile video games maker's shares. The four other board members also represent media giant Vivendi, which is led by billionaire Vincent Bollore.
They include the CEO of Vivendi's pay-TV Canal Plus, Maxime Saada and the son of Bollore, Sebastien Bollore.
"We are at a turning point today ," Vivendi Chief Executive Officer Arnaud de Puyfontaine told Gameloft shareholders. "Gameloft represents the first step in a very ambitious plan that we have for the video games sector," he said.
The Guillemot family, which founded and had run Gameloft since its creation, viewed Vivendi's unsollicited offer as hostile.
The former Gameloft board, controlled by the Guillemot family, resigned earlier on Wednesday.
In an earlier statement, the former board said it could not execute the decisions of a majority shareholder whose strategic vision and values it did not share.
Vivendi also owns about 20 percent of Gameloft's sister company Ubisoft, which was also founded by the Guillemot family.
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