Vivendi Earnings Rise
September 02 2015 - 1:20PM
Dow Jones News
PARIS—Vivendi SA on Wednesday reported a rise in second-quarter
net profit, boosted by a windfall from the sale of its Brazilian
telecom unit GVT to Telefó nica SA.
Vivendi, which in recent years has substantially slimmed down
from a telecommunications to broadcasting conglomerate to a company
with activities mainly in pay TV and music recording, said net
profit rose to €1.96 billion, compared with €1.48 billion a year
earlier. Sales increased in both of its key divisions.
The company has in recent years sold an array of assets from
telecoms to videogames and is now seeking to rebuild itself into a
large European media company under the chairmanship of its largest
individual shareholder, Vincent Bolloré .
Revenue at the group rose 9% to €2.6 billion.
The group's Universal Music Group posted sales that were up 19%
to €1.21 billion in the second quarter from a year earlier,
benefiting from the growth of all its businesses.
French pay-TV group Canal Plus increased revenue by 1% to €1.36
billion, with a strong performance from the group outside France
compensating for falling revenue from French pay-TV.
Mr. Bolloré has pledged to make Vivendi's units work more
closely together and is expected to announce changes to Canal
Plus's top management team Thursday morning following a meeting
with the pay-TV group's top executives, according to people
familiar with the matter.
The company has a roughly €9 billion cash pile from asset sales
leading to questions from analysts and investors about what the
company would do with the money. Having sold its telecoms assets in
recent years, the company bought stakes in Telecom Italia and
Telefó nica this year, raising further questions about its
strategy.
Vivendi also confirmed it increased its interest in Dailymotion
by an additional 10%, and now holds 90% of the video streaming
website's share capital.
Write to Nick Kostov at Nick.Kostov@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 02, 2015 13:05 ET (17:05 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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