Sales 2023: €16.500 billion

Overview

Vivendi remains France's largest media group, even after the spin-off of Universal's music division. The Vivendi business now consists of the pay- and free-to-air TV group Canal Plus, the media agency Havas, the second-largest French publishing group Editis, Prisma Media, the largest French publisher of magazines, and Gameloft, the world's largest developer and publisher of video games for all platforms.

In September 2021, the takeover of the other French media giant Lagardère was also announced (2021 sales: €5.13 billion, 43rd place in the current IfM ranking).

General Information

Headquarters
42, Avenue de Friedland
75380 Paris CEDEX 08
France
Phone: 0033 1 71711000
Website: www.vivendi.com

Branches of trade: Pay TV, film/TV production, film distribution, magazine press, games
Legal form: Stock Company
Financial year: 01.01. – 31.12.
Founding year: 1853 as Compagnie Générale des Eaux, 1998 renamed Vivendi, 2000 renamed Vivendi Universal, 2006 renamed Vivendi

Basic economic data (in million €)

	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018
Revenue	9.595	8.717	16.090	15.898	13.923
Profit (Loss)	(1.010)	24.692	1.228	1.741	1.157
Share price (in €, year-end)	8,91	11,89	26,38	26,31	21,41
Employees	38.315	35.911	42.526	44.641	41.600

Sales by business area (in million euros)

	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018
Universal Music Group	—	—	7.432	7.159	6.023
Canal+ Group	5.870	5.770	5.498	5.268	5.166
Havas Group	2.765	2.341	2.137	2.378	2.319
Editis	—	856	725	687	—
Prisma Media	320	194	—	—	—
Gameloft	321	265	253	259	293
Vivendi Village	238	104	40	141	123
New Initiatives	122	89	65	71	66

Executives and Directors

Board:

• Arnaud de Puyfontaine, President of the Directoire
• Stéphane Roussel, Chief Operating Officer
• Hervé Philippe, Director Financier
• Gilles Alix, Member of the Directoire
• Cédric de Bailliencourt, Member of the Directoire
• Frédéric Crépin, General Secretary of the Group
• Simon Gillham, President of Vivendi Village and Director of Communication of Vivendi
  

Supervisory Board:

• Yannick Bolloré, President of the Council of Surveillance, Havas
• Philippe Bénacin, Vice-Président du conseil de surveillance, Interparfums
• Cyrille Bolloré, Tour Bolloré
• Paulo Cardoso, Vivendi
• Laurent Dassault, Groupe Industriel Marcel Dassault SA
• Dominique Delport, Arduina Partners
• Véronique Driot-Argentin, Vivendi
• Maud Fontenoy, Maud Fontenoy Foundation
• Cathia Lawson-Hall, Société Générale
• Sandrine Le Bihan, Vivendi
• Michèle Reiser, MRC
• Katie Stanton, Moxxie Ventures
• Athina Vasilogiannak, Minos – EMI SA

History

The meteoric rise and extraordinary fall of a media group: Within just under a decade, the venerable water company Compagnie Générale des Eaux (CGE, founded in 1853) became an international media empire that incurred an unheard-of loss of 37 billion euros in just two years, collapsed, and yet managed to maintain its position among the top 30 of the world's largest media groups after streamlining.

In 1987, CGE entered the media business, initially in mobile communications (founding SFR) and film production (Générale d'Images). Communications only became a strategic development axis in 1996, when Jean-Marie Messier, born in 1956 and a student at the elite universities École polytechnique and ENA (École nationale d'administration), took over as CEO. In 1996, the fixed-line provider Cegetel was founded together with Mannesmann AG and British Telecom. After acquiring the fixed-line network of the French railway SNCF, it rose to number two in the French market. In February 1997, Messier acquired control of the media group Havas (parent company of Canal+). The following year, CGE swallowed the company completely, renamed it Vivendi, and entered the multimedia sector with the purchase of the American educational PC games manufacturer Cendant Software.

Messier subsequently pushed the company's international focus. In 1999, he acquired South American textbook publishers; the company's historic core, the environmental division, was strengthened through the purchase of US Filter. Vivendi also acquired stakes in Monaco Telecom and the landline providers Elektrim (Poland) and Matel (Hungary). Also in 1999, the company merged with the French film and production group Pathé.

In 2000, the company embarked on its "Great Leap Forward." It was to fail catastrophically: At the height of the stock market boom, Messier announced a merger with Canal+ and Seagram (spirits, Universal Studios, and Universal Music). The company renamed itself Vivendi Universal and was henceforth divided into six divisions: Universal Music Group, Vivendi Universal Publishing (formerly Havas), TV & Film, Telecommunications, Internet, and Vivendi Environnement. Despite this merger, which was colossal in itself, Vivendi Universal continued its growth trajectory undeterred, fueled by the internet and media euphoria on the stock market. That same year, the Kenyan mobile operator Kencell was acquired, as well as a 35 percent stake in Maroc Telecom. In 2001, other dot-com companies followed (including MP3.com), the US textbook market leader Houghton Mifflin, and, most notably, the purchase of USA Networks and the stake in the US satellite operator Echostar. This last deal alone cost $11.8 billion.

Amidst all the euphoria, Messier was easily able to conceal the fact that the deals were anything but profitable. The surprise was all the greater when Vivendi Universal posted a loss of €13.6 billion in the 2001 financial year, the highest in French economic history. When Messier dismissed this as a simple accounting trick, the public had had enough of their former darling, who actually called himself "J6M" (one J, six M's), "Jean-Marie Messier moi-même maître du monde" (meaning "I, Jean-Marie Messier, ruler of the world"). Further revelations about mishaps in corporate communications, coupled with a steadily declining share price, finally did the trick. In July 2002, he was forced to resign under pressure from the supervisory board. At that time, Vivendi was groaning under a debt burden of €35 billion. With a loss of €23.3 billion, Vivendi almost doubled the negative record set the previous year.

Following the departure of the flamboyant Messier, Jean-René Fourtou was appointed President and Director General in 2002. Fourtou, a confidant of President Chirac, was respected as a turnaround expert. Before his appointment, he had merged the almost bankrupt Rhône-Poulenc group with Hoechst to form Aventis. With a tough but necessary restructuring program, Fourtou lived up to the expectations placed on him. At Vivendi, he quickly sold off large parts of the entire group to escape the crushing debt burden; in Paris he was soon known as "Fourgue-tout" (the one who sells everything). After the drinks division had been sold off under Messier, Fourtou divested himself of numerous business areas that had once been considered core activities. This included the disposal of the shares in BSkyB and Echostar. This was followed by the satellite bouquets in Italy, Benelux, and Scandinavia, the hardware division of Canal+, almost all shares in the environmental division Veolia, the telecom activities in Monaco, Kenya, Egypt, Hungary, and Poland, the UCI cinema chain, and the shares in the sports rights agency SportFive. In total, activities with revenues of €24 billion were sold – during this time, Fourtou completed only two acquisitions in the telecom sector. In 2003, the company increased its stake in telecom provider SFR-Cegetel by 26 percent for €4 billion; in January 2005, Vivendi Universal increased its stake in Maroc Telecom to 51 percent.

The final restructuring step took place in 2004 with the spin-off of Vivendi Universal Entertainment into a joint venture with the General Electric subsidiary NBC. Vivendi held a 20 percent stake in the resulting NBC Universal conglomerate – purely as an investment without strategic control – until December 2009: After months of negotiations, Vivendi sold its NBC Universal stake to General Electric for €5.8 billion. NBC, in turn, was then incorporated into a joint venture led by Comcast (currently ranked third in the IfM ranking) as part of a $30 billion mega-deal.

In 2005, Fourtou declared, "I have fulfilled my mission," stepped back into the supervisory board, and handed Vivendi over as a virtually debt-free cash machine to his successor, Jean-Bernard Lévy, the group's long-time number two. The 55-year-old initially worked in public administration, among other roles as an advisor to Industry Minister Gérard Longuet. In this position, he came into contact with the then Compagnie Générale des Eaux when he granted the utility a private telephone license, thus laying the foundation for what is now the most successful part of the group. Initially, things went very well between PDG Lévy and Supervisory Board Chairman Fourtou. Ultimately, the creation of NBC Universal, the removal of Universal from the Vivendi company name, and the withdrawal from the New York Stock Exchange in August 2006 marked the end of the Messier era, whose breakneck spending spree almost resulted in the collapse of the entire group.

In 2013, the group further streamlined its operations. This time, it was time to "refocus on the media business": Vivendi's stake in Maroc Telecom was sold to the state-owned telecom provider Etisalat (United Arab Emirates) for €4.2 billion. Shortly thereafter, Vivendi raised the equivalent of €6.2 billion from the sale of games publisher Activision Blizzard, which had been created through a merger in 2008 (now ranked 31st in the IfM ranking). This was followed in 2014 and 2015 by the sale of SFR's mobile and cable businesses (to Altice Europe, ranked 16th in the IfM ranking).

However, the "integrated media and content group," as it calls itself, was by no means limiting itself to pay-TV and the music business. The exit from Activision Blizzard, for example, was not a complete departure from the games business. On the contrary: Vivendi expanded its holdings in other companies in the games industry. For example, in Gameloft, the world's largest developer of mobile games, which it acquired a majority stake in in June 2016 despite opposition from Gameloft management. Vivendi also acquired shares in the world's largest games publisher, Ubisoft (ranked 83rd in the current IfM rankings) (although it sold these shares again on October 20, 2018, with a profit of €1.2 billion).

The once-glorious pay-TV channel Canal+ has increasingly become a problem child. As in the US market, new competition from streaming providers is causing the established market leaders in the TV/cable/satellite business to lose numerous customers. For example, Netflix: Despite a significant price increase at the end of 2017, Netflix had five million French subscribers in mid-February 2019, overtaking CanalPlus (4.757 million in the third quarter of 2018; 4.5 million at the end of 2019. Remember: At the end of 2008, the number was still 6.4 million). Canal is now only a competitor on the domestic market.

In May 2019, it was announced: "CanalPlus expands: Acquisition of the pay-TV group M7 (Luxembourg)." CanalPlus CEO Maxime Saada had to act: "I don't deny that we are not yet at the level required in France to keep up with global competition." As a result, Saada implemented drastic cost-cutting measures totaling €450 million, closed the overpriced VOD platform CanalPlay, and organized the launch of Canal+ Series in March 2019 (monthly starting at €6.99). On May 27, 2019, the CanalPlus Group announced the purchase of M7, one of Europe's leading pay-TV operators, for approximately €1 billion. Maxime Saada stated: "This acquisition will enable us to strengthen our distribution capabilities and further expand the content of our catalog and our numerous production activities in Europe."

In February 2020, Vivendi decided to spin off its Universal Music Group subsidiary and list it on the stock market. 60 percent of UMG's capital could be distributed to the group's shareholders. However, this spin-off proved more difficult than expected. After selling 20 percent of the company to the Chinese internet giant Tencent in two steps, a further 10 percent was to be sold to the investment firm Pershing Square Tontine Holding (PSTH) before the IPO. However, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) put a stop to this plan. Instead, star investor Bill Ackman acquired the stake. On September 21, 2021, UMG's IPO was followed by a slump in Vivendi's share price, which temporarily fell by almost two-thirds. By midday that day, however, the combined prices of Vivendi and UMG shares represented a 15 percent increase over the previous day's closing price of Vivendi shares. The Universal Music Group is now ranked 37th in the current IfM ranking with sales of around 6 billion euros.

management

Following Vivendi's downsizing, Vincent Bolloré became Chairman of the Board of Directors. The group of the controversial Breton investor and billionaire currently holds 27.03 percent of Vivendi's shares and is by far the largest shareholder. In April 2018, after four years, Vincent Bolloré handed over the position of Chairman of the Board to his son Yannick. CEO/Chairman of the Board Since January 2014, Arnaud du Puyfontaine, a former Hearst manager and Sarkozy advisor, has been the company's CEO and responsible for all media activities.

Business segments

The top Canal+ Group (100%) operates in around 40 countries. At the heart of the TV division is the pay-TV channel Canal Plus, founded in 1984 on the initiative of Mitterrand (which was then granted one of six terrestrial frequencies). The Canal Plus Group also operates subsidiaries in Poland (nc+, a satellite platform with 2.5 million subscribers), Vietnam (K+, a satellite platform with 400,000 subscribers), the French overseas territories, and Francophone Africa (Canal+ Overseas). It also offers the CanalSat themed channel portfolio. Two free-to-air channels in France (D8, D17) have also been available since 2012. The wholly-owned subsidiary StudioCanal is a leading European player in film production and distribution, with a film catalog of over 5,000 titles. 

When the increasing competition from Netflix became apparent in 2016, CanalPlus CEO Maxime Saada had to react: "I don't deny that we in France are not yet up to par with the global competition." As a result, Saada undertook drastic cost-cutting measures amounting to €450 million, closed the overpriced VOD platform CanalPlay, and organized the launch of Canal+ Series in March 2019 (monthly from €6.99). On May 27, 2019, the CanalPlus Group announced the acquisition of M7, one of the leading European pay-TV operators, for just over one billion euros. M7 offers channel packages in Germany (M7 Germany), Belgium (TV Vlaanderen and TéléSat), the Netherlands (CanalDigitaal and Online.nl), Austria (HD Austria), Skylink in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. With a total of three million European M7 subscribers, the subscriber base from CanalPlus to 20 million worldwide.

Havas (100%), consolidated with Vivendi since July 3, 2017, is one of the world's largest advertising and PR agencies, with a presence in over 100 countries, consisting of Havas Creative Group, Havas Media Group (including Havas Media, Havas Sports & Entertainment and Arena Media) and Havas Health & You.

Editis (100%) is the second-largest French publishing house (with publishers such as Nathan, Robert Laffont, Julliard, Plon, Belfond, Presses de la Cité, Pocket, and Solar). It publishes 4,000 books annually and has a catalog of over 45,000 titles.

Prisma Media (100%) is a general interest magazine publisher founded in 1978 (Capital, Voici, Gala, Télé Loisirs, Femme Actuelle, the French editions of GEO and National Geographic, and many more), which Vivendi acquired from Gruner+Jahr (Bertelsmann) on May 31, 2021.

Gameloft (100%) is one of the largest developers and publishers of mobile games. Its most well-known titles include "Minion Rush" and the "Asphalt" racing game series.

Vivendi Village According to the company, it is a "testing ground for testing innovative ideas and launching projects" along the entire entertainment value chain. These include L'Olympia, the legendary Parisian concert hall; Vivendi Ticketing; the British concert and festival promoter U-Live; and Vivendi Sports (organizer of sports competitions in Africa).

New Initiatives: Video sharing platform DailyMotion, GVA (Group Vivendi Africa)

Participations includes the investments in Universal Music Group (around 101% of total assets), Lagardere (around 45% before the merger, 43rd place in the IfM ranking), Telecom Italia (23,75% of total assets), MediaForEurope (formerly Mediaset, around 24% of total assets, 67th place in the IfM ranking) and the production company Banijay Group (32,9% of total assets, 64th place in the IfM ranking).

Current developments

The takeover of the French M6 Groupe from Bertelsmann failed. Vivendi (Canal+) had applied alongside the Italian media group Mediaset, the telecom and internet investor Xavier Niel, the Czech billionaire Daniel K?etínský, and the French private TV provider TF1. The latter was awarded the contract, despite competition concerns, as was revealed in the summer of 2021.

On September 16, 2021, however, news broke that Vivendi plans to acquire a majority stake in its French competitor Lagardère (ranked 47th in the IfM ranking), along with its associated publishing houses, broadcasters, and magazines. The largest purely European media group is being created. "To finance the acquisition," according to Der Spiegel, "Vivendi could, on the other hand, divest its retail activities." However, the Financial Times wrote on May 12, 2022: "The impending takeover of France's largest publisher, Hachette (part of Lagardère), by billionaire Vincent Bolloré has caused an uproar in the French literary world." Or rather: "Book industry facing mega-takeover - France's book lovers sound the alarm." Vivendi already owns Editis, the second-largest French publishing group, and Hachette would become the number one. This would create the third-largest publisher worldwide after Penguin Random House (Bertelsmann) and HarperCollins (News Corp.).

Rivals consider the deal "unimaginable" and "dangerous," while a booksellers' association warns of a "financial and marketing bulldozer" that would limit "book diversity" in France. Regulators will only approve the deal after a package of measures, including the sale of certain "assets," has been implemented. "Vivendi has publicly acknowledged the need for measures and is working on them." (Financial Times)