Further acquisitions, mergers and divestments
On 12 May 2004, 80% of Vivendi Universal Entertainment (owner of Universal Studios) was sold to General Electric (owner of National Broadcasting Company, Inc.) to form NBC Universal; GE held an 80% stake while Vivendi held a 20% stake in the new company.[37] At the same time, it sold a 50% stake in Canal+ and StudioCanal to the new company. Vivendi also sold its interests in Kencell (re-branded Celtel, Kenya), Monaco Telecom and Sportfive (which it held through Canal+ Group), and sold Newsworld International to the business partnership of Joel Hyatt and former Vice-President of the United States Al Gore. Vivendi also sold Babelsberg Studio.
On 16 December 2005, it was announced that Canal Plus would merge with TPS, France's second largest pay-TV provider. Vivendi owned 85% of the combined entity.
On 17 January 2006, Vivendi Universal announced it would end its American Depositary Receipt program and its listing on the New York Stock Exchange by the end of the second quarter of 2006, due to lowered trading volume on its shares and high costs.[38] On 20 April, the company announced that shareholders had approved the name change to "Vivendi".[39] In August, Vivendi signed a deal with Spiralfrog to distribute Vivendi's songs online in the United States and Canada.
On 2 December 2007, Vivendi announced that it would be merging its game publishing unit with Activision in a $18.8 billion deal.[40][41] This will allow the merged company, Activision Blizzard, to rival Electronic Arts, the world's biggest video game publisher.[41] The merger closed on 9 July 2008, for $9.8 billion. Vivendi held a 52% majority stake in the new business.
On 8 September 2009, Vivendi announced negotiations to buy the Brazilian phone operator Global Village Telecom (GVT).[42] Vivendi took control of GVT at a cost of 56 reais per share, on 13 November, trumping Telefónica's bid.[43] Geneva-based Crédit des Alpes was the investment bank to the transaction, originating the acquisition proposal and advising GVT's majority shareholders.[44]
On 3 December 2009, GE announced it would purchase Vivendi's stake in NBC Universal, which would become a joint venture between GE and Comcast.[45] Vivendi sold its stake in NBC Universal on 25 January 2011.
On 4 April 2011, Vodafone sold its 44% stake in French mobile service provider SFR to Vivendi for about $11 billion[46] and giving Vivendi full control of its largest unit.[47]
In 2012, Vivendi announced having entered a strategic review of its assets and decided to refocus its activities on media and content activities while maximizing its telecoms assets.
On 25 July 2013, Activision Blizzard announced the buyout of 429 million shares from Vivendi for $5.83 billion, dropping the shareholder from a 63% stake to 11.8% by the end of the deal in September, ending Vivendi's majority ownership of Activision Blizzard. In November, Vivendi also sold its 53% stake in Maroc Telecom to Dubai-based Etisalat for around $4.2 billion.[48] Vivendi also confirmed in November 2013 its intention to launch a demerger plan which would result in Vivendi becoming an international media group consisting primarily of Canal+, Universal Music Group, and GVT, while SFR would be listed separately on the stock market. As a result of the foregoing, Vivendi group results for the first semester of 2014 are in a strong growth, witnessing the success of its repositioning strategy. Net income was up 84,8% to €1.9 billion.[49] In August 2014 Vivendi sells GVT to Telefônica Vivo, a subsidiary of Telefónica in Brazil.
The moves allowed Vivendi to pay down debt and increase cash returns to shareholders while leaving it able to do acquisitions of its own. After SFR deal closes, Vivendi was expected to have around €5 billion, leaving it with some room to maneuver even after it pays down debt and returns nearly €5 billion in dividends and share buybacks to shareholders.[50]
In 2014, Vivendi decided to sell mobile companies SFR (France) to Patrick Drahi's company, Altice,[51] and GVT (Brazil) to the Brazilian company Telefônica Vivo.[52] On 28 May, Vivendi sold half of its remaining shares (nearly 41.5 million shares) in Activision Blizzard for $850 million, reducing its stake to 6%.[53]
In April 2015, it was announced that a shareholder in the company Bolloré raised its stake from 10.2 percent to 12.01 percent for a total fee of €568 million.[54] In 2015, Vivendi bought 80% share in Dailymotion.[55] According to the Wall Street Journal, the "French media group offered around $273 million for streaming service".[56] Vivendi was in talks with Orange, to Buy 80% stake in Dailymotion. Also, Vivendi announced extra payouts in compromise with P. Schoenfeld Asset Management shareholder.[57] It was revealed in October 2015 that Vivendi would increase its stake in Telecom Italia to around 19% of the ordinary share capital as part of its aims to increase its influence in the group.[58][59]
In June 2016, after having triggered a mandatory tender offer in February 2016 by reaching 30% ownership, and then becoming its largest shareholder, Vivendi completed a hostile takeover of Gameloft with the acquisition of its founders' stake. At the same time, Vivendi also further increased its stake in Ubisoft, which had led to concern from the company's management that Vivendi was also planning a hostile takeover of Ubisoft, however as of 2018 Vivendi is no longer in the position to do so.[63][64][65] Vivendi (once the owner of Blizzard, later Activision Blizzard),[66] searching for a new games publisher property has started investing in both Ubisoft and Gameloft.[67] The brothers in charge of Ubisoft and Gameloft, Yves Guillemot and Michel Guillemot[68]
In 2019, Vivendi acquired Nigeria's film studio ROK Studios which included its linear channels and VOD service, IROKO+.[79]
At the end of the first quarter of 2020, Vivendi completed a partial sale of Universal Music Group (UMG) to a consortium led by Tencent, a Chinese media conglomerate. The amount of stake of the world's largest record label group that has been sold to the consortium is 10% and the valuation of which was $3.3 billion. The Tencent-led consortium retained an option to purchase another 10% at the same valuation until January 2021, which they opted to exercise in December 2020.[80] Pershing Square Holdings later acquired 10% of UMG prior to its IPO on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange. The company went public on 21 September 2021, at a valuation of €46 billion.[81] In April, Vivendi bought a 10.6% stake in Lagardère Group, another French media group, the assets of which include the world's third-largest book publisher Hachette.[82] By August 2020, Vivendi had doubled its stake in Lagardère to 23.5%, becoming the largest shareholder of the rival group.[83]
In September 2021, Vivendi distributed 60% of its UMG shares to shareholders and retained 10% of shares in an IPO at Euronext Amsterdam.[89] Amber Capital informed Vivendi of its intention to sell all its shares in Lagardère (17.93 of the share capital) and invited Vivendi to make an acquisition offer. Vivendi has acquired Amber Capital's shares for 24.1 euros per share. The transaction will be completed by 15 December 2022, after gaining the approvals required by the current regulations in light of the takeover that could result from the mandatory public offer following this acquisition.[90] In December 2021, Vivendi announced its plan to accelerate the purchase of Amber's stake in Lagardère.[91] As of June 2022, Vivendi owns 57.3% of Lagardère following the latter's IPO.[92] Vivendi offered to divest the book publisher Editis, as Lagardère already owns Hachette.[93]
In July 2022, Vivendi announced its plan to spin off Editis, anticipating the European competition regulators not to allow Editis and Lagardère Publishing to merge.[93] In June 2023, Vivendi agreed to sell Editis to Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský's Czech Media Invest.[94] In July 2023, Vivendi announced that Prisma Media entered into exclusive negotiations with Groupe Figaro for the sale of Gala magazine.[95] The transactions for Editis and Gala magazine were finalized in November 2023.[96][97]
