In the background of this literary season, a huge economic event is looming: the capitalistic recomposition of French publishing, which still seems a long way from its epilogue. In the midst of the summer torpor, on July 28, the Vivendi group announced that it was ready to sell all of Editis, the second French publisher, which it had acquired at the end of 2018. By renouncing the announced marriage between Editis and Hachette, the group of which Vincent Bolloré is the main shareholder hopes to more easily obtain the green light from the competition authorities of the European Commission to keep only Hachette, number three in the world.
Using a scheme already used for its musical subsidiary, Universal Music Group, Vivendi intends to sell Editis according to a “distribution-listing”. This publishing group, which employs 2,400 people and brings together fifty-three houses, including Plon, Les Escales, 10/18, La Découverte, Nathan and Robert Laffont, should be listed on the Euronext market in Paris. And each shareholder of Vivendi would receive Editis shares in proportion to those he holds in the parent company. However, the Bolloré group (controlled by the businessman’s family), which owns 29.46% of Vivendi’s capital, undertakes to sell its share in Editis to a third party, to make it a true reference shareholder. Vivendi still has to appoint banks in order to woo potential buyers and notify, in September, this new operation to the authorities responsible for competition at the European Commission.
“Neither to a French competitor nor to an investment fund”
Arnaud de Puyfontaine, Chairman of the Management Board of Vivendi, does not wish to sell “neither to a French competitor nor to an investment fund”, in the first case, to avoid facing Hachette too big adversaries and, in the second, to prevent Editis from being sold in the medium term. Without proclaiming it, Editis’ competitors could be a little disappointed. Antoine Gallimard, at the head of the Madrigall group, while having taken the lead of the revolt against the Hachette-Editis merger, had, before a senatorial commission, on February 16, expressed his interest in the takeover of certain educational publishing houses if Brussels forced the new group to sell part of it. “If there were any opportunities, I would look at them,” he said. Media Participations (Dargaud, Dupuis, Seuil, La Martinière, etc.) seemed to be on the same line.
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