Paris (awp/afp) – The media giant Vivendi, which recently got its hands on the Lagardère group and the French leader in publishing Hachette, said it was ready on Thursday to entirely sell its subsidiary Editis, number two in the sector. , effectively renouncing a very controversial marriage.
It is a change of foot for Vivendi, which would have preferred to keep its subsidiary, acquired at the end of 2019 for 829 million euros. But faced with strong opposition from competing publishers and booksellers, as well as the probable blocking of Brussels in the face of the constitution of an overly dominant player, the group is now considering a concession.
With a majority stake in Lagardère after the success of its public offer filed at the beginning of the year, Vivendi today still exercises only 23% of the voting rights pending authorization of the takeover of the group by the competition authorities.
The project presented Thursday will also have to be accepted by Brussels in order to be implemented. It consists of distributing Editis shares to Vivendi shareholders, and at the same time listing the company on the Euronext market in Paris, explained Vivendi.
The method is reminiscent of the one used by the group in 2021 to transfer 60% of the value of Universal Music Group to its shareholders. But this time, the Bolloré group, controlling shareholder of the media giant, has undertaken to resell the Editis shares received to a new shareholder, as yet unknown.
Vivendi thus wishes to “ensure the sustainability and integrity of Editis” and “move forward in its project of rapprochement” with Lagardère, declared the chairman of the management board of the group Arnaud de Puyfontaine during a conference call with journalists.
Editis employs around 2,400 people and federates 53 houses in the fields of literature, education and reference, including Nathan, Robert Laffont, Plon, Presses de la Cité, 10/18, La Découverte, Cherche Midi.
It is also he who owns the dictionary Le Robert, the eternal rival of Larousse, controlled by Hachette.
“Watchfulness” ___
This distribution-listing of Editis has, according to Mr. de Puyfontaine, the advantage of being “fast and simple” and of not upsetting the competitive environment of the sector.
The prospect of a marriage between the publishing division of Lagardère (Lagardère Publishing, including Hachette Livre) – which represents a turnover of 2.6 billion euros in 2021, of which approximately two thirds internationally – and Editis (856 million euros), had for months aroused the concern of the entire publishing sector.
Together, they crush the French market with their domination, especially in sensitive areas: 74% market share in school books, 84% in extracurricular, according to figures from the National Publishing Union cited by a competitor, Antoine Gallimard, very critical of the merger.
The latter judged on Thursday that the proposed sale of Editis had “nothing surprising in view of European competition rules and the organization of the publishing industry”. In a statement to AFP, he called for “the greatest vigilance” on “the links that may exist between the future reference shareholder of Editis and the Vivendi group” and “the persistent conglomerate risks” due to the merger between Lagardere and Vivendi.
Michèle Benbunan, the general manager of Editis, a subsidiary of Vivendi, had for her part denounced in early July in an interview with Le Monde the “political-fiction” according to which Vincent Bolloré wanted to control the publishing market in order to exercise ideological influence.
The rating agency Moody’s had made the assumption in April that “Vivendi could draw a billion euros” from a hypothetical sale of Editis.
The French media giant (Canal+, Havas, Prisma Media), which intends to develop internationally, published Thursday a turnover of 4.9 billion euros for the first half, an increase of 11% or 5% at constant exchange rate and perimeter.
Its net profit remained stable over one year at 491 million euros, the capital gain on the disposal of Banijay Group before its IPO in July being partly offset by the loss of the operator Telecom Italia, of which Vivendi is the first shareholder.
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