Paris (AFP) – Three spinoffs from French right-wing tycoon Vincent Bollore’s Vivendi media empire debuted on stock markets on Monday, with mixed results as shares in the Canal+ television and film group tanked in London. Bollore, who has invested heavily in conservative newspapers and TV channels, successfully pushed through the breakup of Vivendi, which he believes will increase the overall value of its assets.
Canal+, whose movie studio is behind the “Paddington” film series, fell 15 percent on the London stock exchange in morning deals. Canal+ chief executive Maxime Saada told the French newspaper Le Figaro that the company’s market debut was not expected to “follow a path paved with roses in the first weeks, the first months.” “The success of this initial public offering, we will measure it in two to three years,” he said.
The other two spinoffs had a better start: Book publisher Louis Hachette soared 25 percent on the Euronext Growth in Paris while advertising agency Havas was up six percent in Amsterdam. Shares in the remaining Vivendi company, which stayed on the Paris stock exchange, were also up in morning deals.
The breakup of Vivendi was approved by 97 percent of shareholders in a vote on December 9. Bollore, who is close to far-right French politicians, officially “retired” in 2022 at age 70 in order to hand control of his empire to his two sons Yannick and Cyrille, but he is widely thought to continue to exercise control behind the scenes.
After taking over the family-owned business in 1981, the devout Catholic expanded from industrial and plastics activity into infrastructure, notably in West African ports and transport. He has acquired and then shaken up a number of TV channels, radio stations, and newspapers in recent years, installing executives and editors who share his conservative and anti-immigration views despite strikes and objections from journalists.
His increasingly influential 24-hour CNews channel has been compared by some media analysts to Fox News in the United States, with its focus on crime and immigration as well as its often noisy evening talk show formats. Forbes estimates his fortune to be around $10 billion.
© 2024 AFP
