City news, and Universal Music owner Vivendi has posted a 3.2% increase in profits to 1.35 billion euros for the quarter up to the end of June. Revenues were up 15.1% to just under 6 billion euro. City types were most pleased by the news that the company is not looking to raise more money through the financial markets in order to fund their recent acquisition of French phone firm Neuf Cegetel and the merger of its gaming division with Activision - management at the entertainment conglom had previously said they may need to do so.
Despite the good news at group level, Universal Music did not enjoy quite so rosey figures for the quarter, with revenues down 5.3% and profits down 9.2%. While such declines are now quite common in the record business, Universal, the biggest music company in the world of course, has so far, in the main, suffered least from the global decline in record sales. Still, a record company is only ever as strong as its release schedule, and a quiet schedule in any one quarter can always lead to a blip in overall financial performance. It will be interesting to see how the major major fairs over the year.