This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Top Stories
Vivendi denies split rumours
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 26 April 2012
Universal Music owner Vivendi has denied a Bloomberg report that the board there is considered a dramatic reorganisation that could result in some of the firm’s divisions being spun off into standalone companies, or the group being split into two.
Speculation about a restructure follows an admission by the company’s Chairman and CEO in a recent letter to shareholders that the firm has been facing some difficulties of late, mainly because of a new competitor in the French telecoms market. Vivendi’s SFR tel co has traditionally been a good earner for the group, but the launch of an ultra-low cost mobile rival in France has hit it hard, just as the entertainment and communication’s firm took complete ownership of its telephone business, buying out Vodafone’s share this time last year.
According to Reuters, in their letter the Vivendi chiefs told shareholders that the firm’s board constantly reviewed its portfolio of companies, and that the concept of selling some of its assets was “never taboo”. They added: “Should we keep the perimeter of the group as it is? Should we sell assets or separate the group in two or three? These questions are not taboo … Your board is sensitive to these strategic questions and studies them deeply”.
These comments seem to have led to this week’s report that a split was being seriously considered at Vivendi HQ, with Universal Music and games unit Activision Blizzard sitting in one business, and other divisions in another. But a Vivendi spokesman yesterday strongly denied that any such proposals were being given serious consideration at this time.
Said spokesman told reporters: “Vivendi learned with stupefaction of the claims made by Bloomberg in a story published tonight about its strategy. Vivendi vigorously denies all the assertions in the story, which are unfounded and based on anonymous sources”.
Vivendi’s music business Universal plans to get much bigger, of course, via its planned purchase of the EMI record company, regulator approval permitting, though the music major will sell off some of its publishing catalogues to help fund the deal.
