Vivendi closes Editis sale

French media company Vivendi has closed the sale of publishing house Editis to International Media Invest for €653 million (A$1.1b), reports the Bookseller.

The sale price is less than the €900m (A$1.5b) Vivendi paid to acquire the publisher from Grupo Planeta in 2018.

In June the European Commission approved Vivendi’s acquisition of Hachette parent company Lagardère, on the condition Vivendi divested from Editis and the magazine Gala. Vivendi said the sale of Gala to the Le Figaro Group should be completed by the end of the month. In a statement, Vivendi said its takeover of Lagardère ‘should take place in the coming weeks, allowing Vivendi to fully implement its ambitious development plan’.

As previously reported by Books+Publishing, Hachette Book Group (HBG) in the US and Hachette UK (HUK) will be reorganised under ‘a new English-language management structure’ that will see HUK CEO David Shelley take on the CEO role for both HBG and HUK. The change came a week after Arnaud Lagardère was appointed chair and CEO of Hachette Livre.

Category: International news