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Universal parent close to deal to take complete ownership of TV business
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 29 October 2013
Universal Music parent company Vivendi has reached a deal to take complete ownership of its telly business Canal+, according to French media reports.
As previously reported, Vivendi, which in recent years has had interests in both content and telecommunications, is busy restructuring, dumping the latter part of its business and focusing on the former. Though the restructuring has also involved selling off all but a minority stake in arguably its most successful content company, the Activision gaming firm.
With its French TV business Canal+, however, an opposite approach has been pursued, with Vivendi buying out the subsidiary’s minority shareholder Lagardere, rather than selling the rest of the company to it. Lagardere has actually been keen to bail on Canal+ for a while, though relations between it and Vivendi have been tense – and at one point litigious – so the deal has taken a while to be agreed.
According to French newspaper Les Echos, Vivendi will likely pay about a billion euros for Lagardere’s 20% of Canal+, though a final price is still being agreed, with Vivendi pushing for 900 million euros, Legardere something just over 1.1 billion. Even at Vivendi’s valuation, analysts seem to think the arrangement is a better deal for Legardere, questioning future growth of the TV business in an increasingly competitive market.
With the concurrent plan to float its main telecoms business SFR, Vivendi chiefs seem set on a future built around two wholly owned content businesses, Universal Music and Canal Plus, possibly using the booty from its Activision and SFR sales to buy further content assets.
