BARCELONA-- Conglomerate Vivendi SA (VIV.FR) is hard at work on a new strategy for its far-flung media and telecommunications assets, and hopes to "start acting in the coming quarters," the company's chief financial officer said Thursday.

Vivendi has been in the midst of a strategic review since spring, when shareholder discontent over the company's disparate structure--with assets spread across varied businesses and continents --flared because of a sharp drop in profitability at its French mobile phone unit SFR. Since then, the company has been privately investigating asset sales and publicly saying no strategic option is "taboo," sending its share price higher.

"We have raised hopes in the investor community. We have to come to a conclusion and start acting in the coming quarters," CFO Philippe Capron said at the Morgan Stanley TMT conference in Barcelona. "If we didn't do anything, stock would plunge again. Investors would be justifiably disappointed."

As part of the review, longtime Chairman Jean-Rene Fourtou has been looking to refocus Vivendi on its media assets, such as Universal Music Group and French pay-television company Canal Plus, where board members and executives see more global growth potential, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The company has received preliminary interest for both its Brazilian telecom subsidiary GVT and its stake in African phone operator Maroc Telecom, with bidding possible in coming months, people familiar with those processes said. Vivendi is also studying potential deals to merge or sell SFR, the company's largest unit by revenue and profit, though such deals are less advanced these people added. All of the deals face potential obstacles on price and other issues.

On Thursday, Mr. Capron declined to comment on specific deals, saying instead that the company is working to "validate" and "flesh out this vision which the chairman has developed." But Mr. Capron did say that synergies between the company's telecommunications assets like SFR and its media assets like Canal Plus did not make enough impact to justify keeping those types of assets together.

"They are not sufficient to justify the existence of the group," Mr. Capron said. "Vivendi has been the product of history at least as much as by design. That is what we're trying to remedy," he added.

-Write to Sam Schechner at sam.schechner@wsj.com

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