(Update: details on the offer and context)
PARIS (Agefi-Dow Jones)–The publishing and media group Vivendi has raised the price of its takeover bid (OPA) for Lagardère from 24.10 to 25.50 euros per share, according to the draft offer filed Monday with the Financial Markets Authority (AMF) and published the same day by the police of the Paris Stock Exchange.
Vivendi raised the price of its takeover bid for Lagardère after observing that the “resop” of the distribution and media group, which is its main indicator of profitability, had become positive again last year.
On Friday, Vivendi announced that it was considering raising the price of its takeover bid on Lagardère to 25.50 euros, after having indicated in December 2021 that it wanted to buy the company for 24.10 euros per share, i.e. the price at which the Amber Capital fund had then transferred his Lagardère shares to him.
Vivendi currently holds 63,693,239 Lagardère shares representing 45.13% of the company’s capital and voting rights. The takeover bid will lapse if the initiator does not hold, at the end of the initial period of the offer, “a number of shares representing a fraction of the capital or voting rights of Lagardère greater than 50%”, a specified the AMF in its opinion.
“The initiator does not intend to request the implementation of a squeeze-out at the end of the public offer” and “the draft memo in response from Lagardère including in particular the report of the independent expert and the reasoned opinion of the board of directors will be submitted later”, added the AMF. For its part, the gendarme of the Paris Stock Exchange will soon publish the calendar of the offer.
In response to these announcements, Lagardère shares rose 0.2% to 25.34 euros, while Vivendi shares fell 1.2% to 11.32 euros.
Vivendi on the move since spring 2020
Vivendi announced last September its intention to take over the entire capital of Lagardère, which it entered in April 2020. At the time, the group controlled by businessman Vincent Bolloré assured that this investment in Lagardère was of a “friendly” nature.
Since then, Vivendi has regularly increased its stake in Lagardère, before concluding a shareholders’ agreement with the Amber Capital fund, also a shareholder of the owner of Europe 1 and Hachette, in order to influence its governance.
In June 2021, Lagardère’s general meeting validated the transformation of the group into a public limited company with a board of directors, requested in particular by Vivendi and Amber Capital. Set up in 1992 to save Hachette from bankruptcy after the failure of the television channel La Cinq, the partnership by shares had transformed Lagardère into an impregnable fortress.
By taking over Lagardère, Vivendi intends to strengthen itself in publishing via Hachette and achieve synergies with its own publishing subsidiary, Editis.
Vivendi will probably have to make major concessions by selling some of its assets in France. Editis and Hachette are the two leading publishers in France, the first being only present in France.
-Dimitri Delmond, Agefi-Dow Jones; 01 41 27 41 37; [email protected] ed: VLV – ECH
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February 21, 2022 11:23 ET (16:23 GMT)