Vivendi, the French mass-media holding company, is set to hold a shareholders’ meeting on December 9 in Paris to vote on the company’s plan to split into four separate entities.
Headquartered in Paris, Vivendi owns Groupe Canal+, Havas, Gameloft, Prisma Media, Vivendi Village, and Dailymotion, and is a majority owner of the Lagardère Group.
For the past year Vivendi has been making plans to split into four different public companies—a plan that includes spinning Havas into an independent public firm as it was before Vivendi acquired it in 2017. The firm announced that it was considering the split in a bid to maximize shareholder value.
If the plan is approved, Havas Group would once again become a separate public company as would media company Canal+ and publisher Louis Hachette Group. Their new stock listings would become effective December 16. Havas had been a public company before being acquired by Vivendi in 2017.
In July, Vivendi said that if the plan was executed as anticipated the Bolloré group would hold approximately 30.6% of the share capital and voting rights of Canal+ and Louis Hachette Group. And it would hold approximately 30.6% of the share capital of Havas NV and could hold over 40% of the voting rights.
Bolloré was also the controlling shareholder in Havas prior to its acquisition by Vivendi.
