(AOF) – As the mandate of the current Vivendi Management Board expires on June 23, 2022, a new team will be put in place the next day around Arnaud de Puyfontaine, its Chairman. It will be composed of Frédéric Crépin, Secretary General of Vivendi; François Laroze, who will be appointed Chief Financial Officer of Vivendi and who will retain his position as Chief Financial Officer at Havas; Claire Léost, President of Prisma Media; Céline Merle-Béral, who will be appointed Director of HR Strategy and Corporate Culture at Vivendi; and Maxime Saada, Chairman of the Management Board of Canal+ Group.
To support it in the implementation of the group’s strategic orientations, this new Management Board will be able to rely on a new body, an Executive Committee, in which the Chairman and the members of the Management Board will participate, as well as seven other members.
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Key points
– Holding of 3 divisions, culture with Editis, cultural entertainment with Canal Group, DailyMotion and Gameloft, and media with Havas Group and Prisma Media;
– Revenues of €9.6 billion generated by the Canal + group (60%), by Havas (24%) and Editis (9%);
– “Creation Unlimited” business model aiming to become the world leader in content, media and communication by accelerating business growth, investing in the long term, creating synergies between businesses and enhancing catalogs;
– Capital controlled at 27.03% and 29.73% of the voting rights by the Bolloré Group, the 13-member supervisory board being chaired by Yannick Bolloré;
– Debt-free balance sheet with net cash of €348m, equity of €19.2bn.
Challenges
– Strategy based on the development of intellectual properties and content through franchises, “live” (festivals), on the penetration of the African, Indian and Chinese markets and on online distribution via Dailymotion;
– Good visibility of the activity, subscriptions representing almost 2/3 of revenues;
– Innovation strategy based on the emergence of local creators, on the offer of creation platforms and incubators in several countries and on investment in innovative companies;
– “Creation for the future” environmental strategy: objective of carbon neutrality with a 30% reduction from 2025 /circular economy, from eco-design;
– Penetration of China after the sale of 10% of UMG to Tencent with the acquisition of Front Network;
– Settlement of the conflict with Mediaset (nearly 29% of the capital but low voting rights) and Fininvest.
Media: Gradual disappearance of the free press and m
regional press reports
The pandemic has heavily affected the free press, which is already struggling. The first title to collapse was the daily Metro, which ceased publication in 2015. The health crisis led to a drop in advertising spending for several months while the economic model of these titles is based entirely on advertising revenue. In addition, the disaffection of public transport, the generalization of teleworking in companies have further reinforced the unfavorable context. According to data from the ACPM (Alliance for Press and Media Figures), the free news press saw a drop in circulation of 54.3% in 2020, compared to the year 2019. The only survivor is now the newspaper 20 Minutes (created in 2002). Since June 2021, its paper edition has been distributed three days a week. After a 38% drop in turnover in 2020, it is banking on digital to bounce back.
As for the PQR (regional daily press), it is stepping up initiatives to boost digital subscriptions, after having long been spared the crisis in press distribution thanks to subscriptions. According to the ACPM Observatory, the share of digital versions on the Internet (individual and by third party) represents 57.3% of the circulation of the national daily press, but only reaches 10% for the regional dailies. To retain digital subscribers, who are more volatile than paper subscribers, regional dailies are expanding their content offer. Thus five publishers (“Le Télégramme”, “La Voix du Nord”, “Sud-Ouest”, “La Nouvelle République du Centre-Ouest”, and “Ebra”, a subsidiary of Crédit Mutuel grouping together several titles) have joined forces in the television within a company, Territoires TV, to better monetize their digital audiences.