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Vivendi shares face pressure as sales, UMG and Italy disappoint

May 18, 2018 at 04:42 am EDT

PARIS (Reuters) - Vivendi shares fell on Friday after the media group disappointed investors with first quarter sales below expectations, a lack of details over plans for its UMG music business and new tensions over Telecom Italia.

Shares in Vivendi, in which billionaire businessman Vincent Bollore has a stake of around 20 percent, fell 2.5 percent at the start of trading. They later recovered some ground, but the stock remained down 0.9 percent by 0835 GMT.

Late on Thursday, Vivendi reported higher first-quarter sales and said it would review a possible change in the shareholding structure of its UMG music division, following two years of speculation about a potential listing.

"Group revenues of 3.11 billion euros (2.7 billion pounds) came in 1-2 percent below consensus mainly due to forex," said Exane BNP Paribas analysts, who kept a "neutral" rating on the stock.

"No timeline (on UMG IPO) was provided but we think this is a long process and an IPO is unlikely to materialise this year (if at all)," added Exane BNP Paribas.

For their part, Barclays analysts also wrote that some might be disappointed at the lack of a precise announcement of an initial public offering (IPO) for UMG.

"In our view, the market was expecting an IPO announcement, therefore only a proposal might disappoint," wrote Barclays.

Vivendi also resumed hostilities over Telecom Italia on Thursday with a threat to call a new shareholder meeting to change the Italian company's board, two weeks after it lost control to U.S. activist fund Elliott.

Brokerage Berenberg cut Telecom Italia's (TIM) target price, citing "a toxic cocktail", with Telecom Italia shares also falling on Friday.

Vivendi, which owns 24 percent of Telecom Italia, on Thursday said a "risk of a dismantling" of TIM could prompt the company to call another shareholder meeting to change the Italian phone group's board.

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon and Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Keith Weir)

By Dominique Vidalon and Sudip Kar-Gupta

Stocks mentioned in the article

Add to a list Add to a list 0 selected To use this feature you must be a member Log in Sign up	Price	Change	5d. change	Capi.
BNP PARIBAS	68.88 EUR	+1.70%	+4.96%	81.86B
VIVENDI SE	9.816 EUR	-1.33%	-0.41%	10.89B
BOLLORÉ SE	6.155 EUR	-1.05%	-1.28%	18.16B
TELECOM ITALIA S.P.A.	0.2241 EUR	-0.58%	+2.28%	5.18B
UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP N.V.	26.82 EUR	-0.89%	-0.11%	52.67B

Vincent Marie Claude Bolloré

Vincent Bolloré (born 1952) is a French industrialist, corporate raider and businessman. He serves as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of investment group Bolloré.

Biography
Early life
Vincent Bolloré was born on 1 April 1952 in Boulogne-Billancourt. He attended the Lycée Janson de Sailly before graduating with a Master of Laws (LLM) degree from Université Paris X Nanterre.

Career
He started his career as an investment bank trainee at Edmond de Rothschild.

His personal investment career began when he took over the reins at his family-controlled conglomerate Bolloré, which deals in maritime freight and African trade, and paper manufacturing (cigarette and bible paper). The company he leads today employs 33,000 people around the world. He is a well-known corporate raider in France who has succeeded in making money by taking large stakes in French listed companies, in particular the building and construction group Bouygues, where he left with a sizeable capital gain after a power-struggle.

In late 2004, his investment group started building a stake in advertising group Havas, becoming its largest single shareholder. He mounted a coup and replaced Alain de Pouzilhac as Havas Chief Executive Officer on 12 July 2005. In 2005, through his family company, he expanded his media interests by launching the Direct 8 television station. Towards the end of 2005, he began building a stake in independent British media planning and buying group, Aegis. As of 19 July 2006, his stake in Aegis stood at 29%. Direct Soir, a free newspaper, was launched in June 2006. In January 2008, he manifested interest in becoming a shareholder of famed, but troubled, Italian car manufacturer Pininfarina.
The Bolloré Group also has important positions in the economies of several former French colonies in Africa (in particular Ivory Coast, Gabon, Cameroon, and Congo).

Personal Life
He is married, with four children. He is ranked 329th richest person in the world according to Forbes, with an estimated fortune of US$4 billion.

Vincent Bolloré is engaged with the French supermodel Vanessa Modely, égérie of Christian Dior and Karl Lagerfeld.

He is a close personal friend of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. It has been said that their friendship goes back over 20 years. Sarkozy has been criticized for accepting vacations from Bolloré, as did president Georges Pompidou with Vincent's father, Michel Bolloré. They have both claimed that no conflict of interest exists.

Source @ Wikipedia

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