Vivendi shares sing on Universal Music float plan
Vivendi investors despatched shares surging by a lot more than a fifth soon after the media huge confirmed options to record Common Music as a €30bn (£26bn) company by the finish of the year.
The French group, controlled by the billionaire Bollore family members, is poised to funds in on a growing investor hunger for new music investments by offloading 60pc of Common with an Amsterdam listing.
Affirmation of the strategy, which is probably to get shareholder acceptance at a March 29 meeting, despatched Vivendi shares up 20pc to €31.41 in Paris, valuing the company at €37bn.
The company options to keep a 20pc keeping in Common next the float soon after promoting two 10pc stakes to Tencent, the Chinese tech and entertainment conglomerate.
In a memo to personnel on Saturday, Vivendi chief executive Arnaud de Puyfontaine and chairman Yannick Bollore said the final decision to open Common Music’s share capital to Tencent experienced “confirmed its attractiveness with strategic investors”.
“UMG would be in a posture to consider benefit of greatly greater monetary adaptability to pursue its dynamic expansion and its groundbreaking function in the new music and entertainment marketplace, to the reward of artists and enthusiasts everywhere you go,” they extra.
Vivendi owns 80pc of Common alongside investments in French broadcaster Canal+, film and Television set generation company Studiocanal, marketing agency Havas, guide publisher Editis and Gamesloft, the cell video games maker.
