Vivendi is considering a sale of the See Tickets business and its other interests in live music, which includes a number of festivals. According to Sky News, sources say that the French company is already working with advisers on a sale process that could kick off imminently.
Having originally begun as the ticket-selling business of Nottingham-based record shop Way Ahead Records, See Tickets adopted that name when owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group in the mid-2000s. Vivendi acquired the business in 2011, it being very active in the music sector at the time as the owner of Universal Music.
The ticketing firm - which now operates in various European markets as well as the US - sits within what is called the Vivendi Village division, which also owns a number of festivals, including UK-based events Love Supreme and Kite.
The sources who spoke to Sky News say that Vivendi bosses have concluded that the live music division is not of sufficient scale to compete with the major global players in live entertainment, in particular AEG and Live Nation/Ticketmaster.
And that's why they’re considering selling the Vivendi Village assets, although the sources add that it's not yet 100% certain any sale will actually go ahead.
Vivendi spun Universal Music off as a standalone business listed on the Dutch stock exchange back in 2021, of course. It retains a nearly 10% shareholding in the music major.
The big businesses within Vivendi today are the Canal+ TV and movie company and the Havas marketing agency group.
Mark Kleinman