The long soap opera of the change of owner of Editis, number two in French publishing, is spicing up and becoming more complex every day. The seller, the Vivendi group, announces that the file is progressing; yet it is stagnating at best or receding. After being refused by Brussels its great dream of a merger between Hachette and Editis, then its plan to put Editis on the stock exchange, the group of Vincent Bolloré revealed on March 14 the start of exclusive negotiations with the Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky to sell him 100% of the parent company of Robert Laffont, Julliard, Plon or 10/18.
Since that date, the bulimic businessman − present in the energy, press, distribution and shareholder of the World indirectly − continued its shopping, unveiling on March 22 its increase in the capital of Fnac-Darty to 25%, thus becoming the largest shareholder. Fnac prides itself on being the biggest seller of books in France, with, according to Weekly Books, 50 million books sold in 2022 and the widest offer on the market with nearly 500,000 references. This group is also the first customer of Interforum − the distribution subsidiary of Editis, just ahead of Amazon.
Will this new scheme – between the second French publisher and the biggest seller of books in France – constitute a vertical concentration according to the criteria of the antitrust authorities of the European Commission? Competition can indeed be hindered if two companies are located at different levels in the sequence of production and distribution of a good. Neither the management of Fnac-Darty nor that of Editis make any comment.
“Passive, minority, subordinate shareholder”
At Czech Media Invest, the billionaire’s press group, this hypothesis is brushed aside. It is specified that the businessman declared to the Autorité des marchés financiers that he wanted to remain below the threshold of 30% of the capital of Fnac-Darty, that he did not have the ambition to do so either. take control within the next six months and has not requested a position on the board of directors.
A way to position yourself as a “passive, minority, subordinate shareholder”. Moreover, this investment is ” financial “. It is made through the businessman’s family holding company (like his stake in TF1 for example) and not considered an investment. “industrial”as it aspires to be in Editis. “If one day Daniel Kretinsky wanted to take a stake in Fnac-Darty, this hypothesis would be submitted to Brussels, which would judge”explains the same source.
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