Vivendi to sell off half Universal Music stock as streaming drives value up
Vivendi has announced in its quarterly report that it will sell off up to 50% of its stock in Universal Music Group to one or more ‘strategic partners’.
Vivendi looks to sell UMG stock as primary driver of business as revenue is down 8% from last year.
The media conglomerate, which also purchased Havas last year, said that the sale will commence in the fall and looked for it to be an 18-month process. UMG was considered worth roughly $24bn by analysts, up from a valuation of $22bn given by Vivendi.
Net profit for the company was listed at $192.3m, a year-on-year decrease of 6.3%
Also announced from Vivendi: the closure of its mobile-first streaming service Studio+, seemingly a trend for standalone mobile content hubs as Verizon's Go90 service had shuttered earlier this summer. The offshoot of its Canal+ channel will have its short-form series rerouted through OTT services and streaming platform Dailymotion.
Havas’s revenue for the first half of the year was totaled at $1.02bn, a total that was down by 8.0% from this time last year, however Vivendi said profitability has been up, especially in North American agencies, and it looked poised to have a stronger second half of the year due to large new business wins.
However, UMG remained the biggest source of revenue for Vivendi, accounting for over 45% of its revenue. Streaming’s increased popularity has more than accounted for last decade’s proliferation of illegal downloads, and according to a conversation in Bloomberg, the money earned can potentially be allocated to its online gaming services like Gameloft.