Hints and tips:
...He hasn’t announced a blank-cheque deal since January, when his Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp V announced a tie-up with the digital lender SoFi....
...Vivendi-owned Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music — the “big three” labels — have seen their revenues jump 10 per cent a year, as subscription streaming sales have risen up to 50 per cent....
...“People focus on hardware way too much — it’s a content business, not a technology business,” he continues. “You can’t put Grand Theft Auto V on an iPhone, it’s not the same experience....
...Like the other big music labels, the Vivendi-owned group has a small stake in Spotify, holding about 5 per cent of the company....
...Vivendi has urged investors to be patient over its strategic review, begun in spring last year....
...A Sony split could fit the mood of a sector where analysts speculate about a Vivendi break-up, but media M&A activity has been weak since Comcast bought most of NBC Universal....
...Instead, he would like investors to see the SFR deal as the completion of a three-year process in which Vivendi swapped a passive stake in NBC Universal for full control of SFR, in a way that should be clearly...
...“Most investors have abandoned hope for a clean V-shaped recovery and are now extremely data-point sensitive,” said Lawrence Creatura, vice-president and portfolio manager at Federated Clover Investment...
...At Vivendi Universal, for example, a protracted management struggle only ended after the media conglomerate’s biggest creditors made clear they wanted stability restored to the boardroom....
...After Vivendi’s €2.8bn (£2.5bn) bid for GVT, a Brazilian broadband operator, Bharti Airtel, the Indian telecoms group, struck a $10.7bn deal for the African assets of Kuwait’s Zain....
...Speculation surrounds General Electric‘s potential disposal of NBC Universal. Cable operator Comcast wants a majority of NBC but the deal depends on Vivendi selling its 20 per cent stake to GE....
...After months of speculation, there were widespread reports on Tuesday that General Electrichad agreed to pay Vivendi $5.8bn for the French group’s 20 per cent stake in NBC Universal....
...Elsewhere in the sector, Comcast denied a report that it had struck a deal to buy General Electric’s stake in NBC Universal but reports suggested talks were ongoing about a joint venture....
...The shares rose a further 1.6 per cent to $16.76 after early losses due to speculation that Vivendi, the French media company, could sell its 20 per cent stake in NBC Universal this year....
...That same year, Vivendi launched an audacious $34bn acquisition of Universal Music of the US. European chief executives had finally joined the globalisation game....
...A figure of Napoleonic stature and ambition, he had believed passionately that Vivendi Universal, the sprawling media empire he had assembled in a flurry of audacious deals, was destined to eclipse the goliaths...
...Kindler, Chairman and CEO, Pfizer Inc., USA Klaus Kleinfeld, President and CEO, Siemens AG, Germany Mustafa V....
...Houghton Mifflin was once part of Jean-Marie Messier’s Vivendi Universal empire when the French utility company had ambitions to become a Hollywood conglomerate....
...In Europe, forecast-beating quarterly results from ICI, Vivendi Universal and Commerzbank helped stocks move back towards the 3½-year highs hit at the start of October....
...IAC/InterActiveCorp, the media group controlled by Barry Diller, jumped 4.8 per cent to $25.81 after it agreed to sell its 5.4 per cent stake in Vivendi Universal, the entertainment group, to NBC Universal...
...Calls for the French government to protect France's struggling computer games industry grew on Wednesday after it emerged that Ubisoft had contacted Vivendi Universal about a possible friendly merger to...
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