Vivendi Rejects Universal Selloff

The Paris-based company issued a statement March 23 saying it’s sticking with its plan to create a global industrial content and media group. UMG is the world’s largest music company with annual sales of about $5 billion. Six days earlier, Vivendi chief exec Arnaud De Puyfontaine told journalists in London that the music company isn’t for sale. “Over my dead body,” he said at the time.

Apart from wanting the sale of UMG, New York-based hedge fund P. Schoenfeld Asset Management LP – which owns less than 1 percent of the French media giant – is also proposing Vivendi pays shareholders up to $9.87 billion.

Vivendi had unveiled plans to return about $6.4 billion to investors. The American hedge fund is also keen to know how Vivendi chairman Vincent Bollore plans to spend the $30 billion the company has made from asset disposals as it switched its focus from telecommunications to media. Vivendi’s stance has proved popular with the market, as on March 23 its share price rose 3.3 percent to hit a six-year high of euro 22.9.

Last week Vivendi dismissed a report in the New York Post that said U.S. billionaire John Malone offered to buy Universal Music through his Liberty Media group.