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Vivendi plans to list its French TV business Canal+ in London as part of a break-up of the conglomerate controlled by French billionaire Vincent Bolloré.
The decision to list Canal+ in London reflected the group’s increasingly international operations, Vivendi said on Monday. Canal+ recently agreed to buy MultiChoice, Africa’s largest pay-television operator.
Vivendi, which is listed in Paris, said its advertising business, Havas, would move to the Amsterdam stock exchange as the group dismantled to end a conglomerate structure that it said had depressed the valuation of its individual businesses.
Vivendi said its position as a conglomerate was “substantially reducing its valuation and thereby limited its ability to carry out external growth transactions for its subsidiaries”.
The arrival of Canal+ on the London Stock Exchange would represent a boost for a market that has struggled more than its rivals during a lengthy global drought in initial public offerings.
While Canal+ has deep ties to France, almost two-thirds of its subscribers are now from outside the country. Canal+ will remain incorporated in France and is expected to have a secondary listing in Johannesburg, where MultiChoice is based.
The final part of Bolloré’s break-up plan will bring together Vivendi’s publishing operations, including its 63.5 per cent shareholding in Lagardère and Prisma Media, into a new company to be called Louis Hachette Group.
It would be listed on the Euronext Growth market in Paris, with a separate listing of subsidiary Lagardère on Euronext Paris. Vivendi said all three companies would keep decision-making and their operational teams in France.
The current Vivendi entity would remain listed in Paris and manage a portfolio of investment stakes, foremost among them its 10 per cent stake in Universal Music Group. It will also continue to develop video game maker Gameloft and “provide a certain number of services to the three listed companies resulting from the split”, Vivendi said.
Under the plans, existing shareholders in Vivendi will get the same proportion of stock in the newly listed businesses in London, Amsterdam and Paris. Bolloré is the largest shareholder in Vivendi.
Bolloré has moved to reshape the family’s other businesses as well. The 72 year-old sold off several enterprises previously owned by Bolloré Group, the family’s transportation and logistics company, slimming it down significantly.
At the same time, Bolloré, a devout Catholic, has become increasingly active in rightwing media. He bought news channel i-Tele in 2016, gutting it and transforming it into CNews, which is France’s answer to America’s Fox, while far-right editor Geoffroy Lejeune was placed at the helm of the weekly Journal du Dimanche as Bolloré was in the process of taking it over last year.
A final decision on the Vivendi split is expected at the end of October ahead of a shareholder meeting in December. Canal+ and Havas will remain under French corporate income tax rules.