Vivendi ended up coming to terms with the facts: it could not hold both Lagardère Publishing (Hachette, Larousse, Livre de Poche, Hatier, etc.) and Editis (Plon, Bordas, 10/18, etc.), the two leaders of edition in France, even planed at the margin. The competition authorities would never accept such a concentration, against which the rest of the sector was headwind. Faced with this constraint, a choice was necessary: the media group announced, Thursday, July 28, its intention to offload its entire subsidiary Editis. Objective, to keep the world’s third largest publisher of books for the general public and education, much more international and profitable with the best editorial portfolio, found in the basket of the Lagardère group (Europe 1, The Sunday newspaperRelay, etc. in which it holds 57% of the capital following a takeover bid launched in February.
It was the logical decision, expected for months. On the other hand, the group, in the orbit of the Bolloré family, surprised by announcing that this sale would take place “mainly via a listing distribution”. In other words, Vivendi intends, not to sell Editis to the highest bidder, but to distribute the shares of its subsidiary to its own shareholders, while listing the owner of 53 publishing houses on the Paris Stock Exchange. The group had already used this scheme in 2021 to disengage from Universal Music Group, which has since been listed in Amsterdam.
Through this, the Bolloré group, which owns 29.5% of Vivendi, should recover an equivalent share of Editis. This participation will then be transferred, but not to anyone: “It must be a financially solid company, with a long-term project. Banks will be mandated to find buyers corresponding to this profile, which will be neither a fund [d’investissement] nor a French publishing industry, as this could upset the competitive balance of the publishing sector and would slow down the operation”told the newspaper The echoes Arnaud de Puyfontaine, Chairman of the Board of Vivendi.
Exemption under conditions
This robot portrait of the future reference shareholder of Editis excludes Media-Participations (Le Seuil, Dargaud…) or Madrigall (Gallimard, Flammarion, Casterman…), reputed to be interested in all or part of the number two French publisher. The outcry of the major publishers against the Editis-Hachette merger greatly annoyed Vivendi, but, above all, the buyer of Lagardère does not wish to encourage the emergence of a competitor that is too powerful in front of him.
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