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Vivendi sells its 20% stake in NBC Universal
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 4 December 2009
The corporate link between the Universal Music Group and the other Universal entertainment businesses will soon be completely broken as French conglom Vivendi prepares to sell its 20% stake in NBC Universal, which owns the Universal telly, film and theme park companies.
Many expected Vivendi to sell all of the Universal businesses when the former water company spiralled into financial crisis in 2004. However, bosses held on to the firm’s music business, while selling 80% of the rest of the Universal empire to General Electric, creating NBC Universal.
Of course, even when all the Universal companies had common ownership they operated pretty autonomously, and since GE got majority ownership of NBC Universal, Vivendi have only had an equity rather than managerial interest. However, the completion of the corporate split between Universal Music and the other Universal companies is still a worth noting.
Vivendi is selling its 20% in NBC Universal to GE, who are in turn selling 51% of the company to US cable giant Comcast. It means Vivendi’s entertainment assets will now be the Universal Music Group, French TV channel Canal Plus and gaming giant Activision Blizzard.
Aside from bringing in some cash, Vivendi have bailed out of NBC Universal in a bid to be in a position where it has majority ownership and therefore control of all its assets.
The company’s top man Jean-Bernard Levy said this week: “We are now opening a new chapter in the group’s history. Once this agreement is completed, Vivendi will have exclusive control of all its assets. More coherent, and more focused on rapidly growing countries, with a stronger presence in communications and entertainment businesses that it has managed for many years, Vivendi is determined, at the start of the new decade, to pursue its profitable growth strategy”.
