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Business News Deals Labels & Publishers
Vivendi’s Activision sell-off allowed, while prep for SFR sale underway
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 15 October 2013
Universal Music parent company Vivendi has been able to sell most of its stake in gaming giant Activision after a Deleware court blocked a previously reported challenge by another shareholder.
It means that Activision itself and a consortium led by the firm’s CEO Bobby Kotick will buy around 48% of the company off Vivendi, in a deal that was struck back in July that makes the French conglom a minority shareholder.
According to Bloomberg, Kotick said that the acquisition, basically making Activision an independent player once more, would remove some of the uncertainty that came with being part of Vivendi and enable the group to focus on a new period of expansion and “making great games”.
As previously reported, the Delaware courts put the deal on hold last month after another investor with a stake in Activision said the deal should have gone to a shareholder vote. But the court subsequently knocked back that lawsuit, saying no vote was required.
Back at Vivendi, the entertainment and telecommunications group has appointed banks to advise on the sale of much of the latter part of its operations, ie its flagging French telecoms business SFR.
According to the Financial Times, Société Générale and Citigroup are now advising on the long expected SFR sell-off, likely to be done through a flotation in a year’s time. The sell-off would leave Vivendi with just Universal Music and French TV firm Canal Plus, though it would likely then set about expanding its entertainment industry assets.