Indeed, Vivendi will sell 100% of the capital of Editis and the schedule is accelerating. According to our information, the group will ask candidates to urgently submit takeover offers within the week. The goal is then to move quickly and present a new buyer to the European Commission next week.
The candidates are, a priori, four: the Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky, the Italian publisher Mondadori, Reworld and Quebecor. The trio previously formed by Daniel Kretinsky, Stéphane Courbit and Pierre-Edouard Stérin “has lived”, ensures the entourage of one of the three partners. Vivendi no longer prefers it, according to another source.
Courbit and Stérin offside
Because the European Commission has been clear: it wants a strong shareholder unrelated to the Bolloré family group. However, Vivendi owns 20% of the capital of Banijay, Stéphane Courbit’s television content production group. Brussels has contested the entire sales scheme proposed so far.
For three months, Vivendi favored a weak buyer who is unlikely to outshine Hachette, the leading publisher set to take control as part of its takeover bid for Lagardère. He did try to sell only 30% of Editis – the rest on the stock market – to three different shareholders, including Stéphane Courbit.
The competition department of the European Commission requires him to sell 100% of Editis (Robert Laffont, Plon, Nathan, etc.) to stay with Hachette (Fayard, Calmann-Lévy, etc.). Therefore, the sale of the entire capital of Editis has now been confirmed. “Vivendi wants an agreement with the European Commission so that they make sure they have it,” confirms a close friend of the group between the lines.
Favorite Kretinsky in Paris, Mondadori in Brussels?
Vivendi is now in a weak position. To the point that the group has depreciated the value of Editis in its accounts by 300 million euros, which thus goes from 830 to 530 million euros. For three months, Vivendi tried to impose his first partial sale scheme that had little chance of success. The group is now in a race against time that is no longer the master.
Since the beginning of the sale of Editis, Daniel Kretinsky has been the favorite. But Brussels wants to favor a publishing player, of which Czech is not a part; which would give an advantage to the Mondadori publishing house. But it is hard to imagine Vincent Bolloré selling Editis to the Berlusconi family after the ruthless war they waged for five years over Mediaset.
Source: BFM TV
