The unknowns of the sale of Editis by Vivendi

In the background of this literary season, a huge economic event is looming: the capitalistic recomposition of French publishing, which still seems a long way from its epilogue. In full summer torpor, on July 28, the Vivendi group has announced that it is ready to sell all of Editisthe second French publisher, which it had acquired at the end of 2018. By renouncing the announced marriage between Editis and Hachette, the group of which Vincent Bolloré is the main shareholder hopes to more easily obtain the green light from the competition authorities of the European Commission to not keep only Hachette, world number three.

Using a scheme already used for its musical subsidiary, Universal Music Group, Vivendi intends to sell Editis according to a “distribution-listing”. This publishing group, which employs 2,400 people and brings together fifty-three houses, including Plon, Les Escales, 10/18, La Découverte, Nathan and Robert Laffont, should be listed on the Euronext market in Paris. And each shareholder of Vivendi would receive Editis shares in proportion to those he holds in the parent company. However, the Bolloré group (controlled by the businessman’s family), which owns 29.46% of Vivendi’s capital, undertakes to sell its share in Editis to a third party, to make it a true reference shareholder. Vivendi still has to appoint banks in order to woo potential buyers and notify, in September, this new operation to the authorities responsible for competition at the European Commission.

“Neither to a French competitor nor to an investment fund”

Arnaud de Puyfontaine, Chairman of the Management Board of Vivendi, does not wish to sell “neither to a French competitor nor to an investment fund”, in the first case, to avoid facing Hachette too big adversaries and, in the second, to prevent Editis from being sold in the medium term. Without proclaiming it, Editis’ competitors could be a little disappointed. Antoine Gallimard, at the head of the Madrigall group, while having taken the head of the sling against the Hachette-Editis mergerhad, before a senatorial committee, on February 16, expressed its interest in taking over certain educational publishing houses if Brussels forced the new group to sell part of them. “If there were any opportunities, I would look at them,” he said. Media Participations (Dargaud, Dupuis, Seuil, La Martinière, etc.) seemed to be on the same line.

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