Opposition grows as Vivendi files Lagardère takeover bid
In France, media company Vivendi has filed its proposed takeover bid for Hachette Livre parent company Lagardère Group amid growing opposition to the merger, reports the Bookseller.
In December Vivendi—which owns French publisher Editis—completed its purchase of Amber Capital’s 17.5% stake in Lagardère, bringing Vivendi’s share to 45.1%. Under French laws, a company must make a tender offer for all remaining shares once its stake in another company exceeds 30%.
Vivendi’s bid for the 55.12% of the company it doesn’t already own was filed on 20 February. The offer opens on 14 April and closes on 20 May.
In filing documents, Vivendi said its strategy is to develop ‘a major European cultural group on an international scale by combining creation, production and distribution’. It said Editis is ‘almost exclusively national’ while Hachette Livre’s presence is mainly overseas. Vivendi said the pooling of the two groups’ collective know-how would enable the new entity to take advantage of the profound changes affecting book markets and stand up to major players such as Amazon, which Vivendi said is ‘disrupting the entire industry by competing with both booksellers and publishers’.
Groups including the French Booksellers Association (SLF), the Senate Cultural Commission, the authors society Société des Gens de Lettres (SDGL) and the CFDT book and publishing union have been outspoken about their opposition to the proposed deal.
SDGL president Christophe Hardy said the merger would undermine the battle waged by authors. A petition on Change.org co-written by Hardy, and which currently has more than 1700 signatures, calls for the introduction of anti-trust regulations for book publisher mergers and for authors to cancel their contracts with publishers that are bought out.
SLF director Guillaume Husson told a senate inquiry on media mergers that publishers already have clout over booksellers by setting book prices and booksellers’ margins. ‘What would happen if the market leader doubled its sales?’ he asked.
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