PARIS (Reuters) – Vivendi said on Saturday it planned to distribute 60% of Universal Music’s capital to investors, subject to shareholder approval, and aimed to list its most prized asset, where singers lived. with Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift. end of year.
The plan to list Universal represents part of a process initiated by French billionaire Vincent Bollore, Vivendi’s largest shareholder, to charge for the resurgence of the music industry.
“Vivendi’s major institutional shareholders have been pushing for several years to get a division or distribution from Universal Music Group (UMG) to reduce Vivendi’s conglomerate discount,” Vivendi said in a statement.
The French conglomerate said the distribution would take the form of a special dividend.
UMG, a holding company currently incorporated in the Netherlands, will apply for a Euronext listing in Amsterdam.
The transaction has received a favorable response from the consortium led by the Chinese technology group Tencent, which now controls 20% of UMG, after having bought the stake in two successive waves valuing UMG at 30 billion euros (36.355 billion dollars ), said Vivendi.
Vivendi said it would hold an extraordinary shareholders ’meeting on March 29 to amend the company’s bylaws and make distribution possible.
In addition, Vivendi will propose to distribute a dividend of 0.60 euros per share for its 2020 financial year at a shareholders’ meeting scheduled for 22 June.
($ 1 = 0.8252 euros)
Report by Dominique Vidalon. Edited by Jane Merriman