Vivendi Repeats Content Mantra

Vivendi head honchos Vincent Bollore and Jean-Rene Fourtou had little to do at the annual shareholders meeting in Paris June 24, apart from reiterate the company’s push toward content-driven business.

It’s questionable whether they even needed to do that. Given the deals Vivendi’s made over the last two years, particularly the $1.93 billion acquisition of EMI’s recorded music business and the more recent hiving off of French telecom operation SFR, shareholders must already have a pretty clear picture of the way things are headed.

New chairman Bollore, who owns 5 percent of the French multimedia firm, said he’s looking forward to improved cooperation and synergy across the company’s operations.

“The idea is to transform this financial holding into a real integrated group with a focus on content,” he said, Fourtou, who is on his way out as chairman but will stick around to advise on this closer integration across Vivendi’s various parts, said the company is positioned well “to embark on a new stage of growth.”

“The digital revolution creates multiple opportunities,” he said. Neither said what sort of acquisitions might be made in the “new stage of growth,” but it’s likely that anti-trust laws would allow Universal to swallow up any more of the record music and publishing businesses.