Towards the end of a battle. Three years and seven months: this is the time it took French media mogul Vincent Bolloré, who entered the capital of his competitor Lagardère in April 2020 via his Vivendi group, to be able to officially become the boss.
This week, Vivendi finalized in quick succession the sale of its publishing houses Robert Laffont, Le Robert, Nathan and Plon, brought together in the Editis group, and that of its magazine Gala. These were the final remedies required by the European Commission to preserve competition in the publishing and celebrity press sectors. The institution should no longer obstruct the takeover of the group by the parent company of Canal+ and Havas, expected in the coming weeks.
Vivendi, third largest publishing group in the world
Vivendi owns nearly 60% of its rival’s shares, but had to wait for agreement from the European competition authorities to fully exercise the associated voting rights. Since the announcement of Vivendi’s takeover bid for Lagardère in September 2021, the prospect of a merger, or even a merger, between the two leading French publishers Editis and Hachette Livre (Grasset, Fayard, Livre de Pocket or Hatier), which, moreover, was orchestrated by a businessman with reputedly conservative opinions, had aroused the stir of independent publishers, authors and booksellers.
Over the months, Brussels has obtained from Vincent Bolloré that he sell Editis entirely to the Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky. This transaction was ultimately carried out for a total amount of 653 million euros, a far cry from the 829 million euros paid in 2019 to acquire the group.
But this significant discount and the reluctant sale of Gala to Figaro remain a lesser evil for Vivendi, which becomes the third largest publishing group in the world (an asset for the production of stories and series on a large scale), acquires a global distribution network in train stations and airports and gets its hands on three national news media (JDD, Paris Match and Europe 1).