Here we go again. The New York Times has broached the subject that business journalists have turned into a sporting event: the future of French media conglomerate Vivendi.
Over the weekend it emerged that Vivendi reportedly had held talks with private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts over a potential $50 billion buyout, according to The Times. It's not the first time a buyout firm has flirted with the idea of acquiring the media and telecom conglomerate.
Vivendi is a strange amalgamation of media and telecom assets that if it were an animal might be a duck-billed platypus. In part, Vivendi owes its strange organization to Jean Marie-Messier, who took a French water utility and attempted to create a new Hollywood player through a series of acquisitions during the 1990s. His prize quarry was the acquisition of Universal Studios from the Bronfman family. However, the deal left Vivendi saddled with heavy debts. Trouble managing the debt led to Messier's ouster in 2002 and the eventual spin off of the water utility business, now known as Veolia. However, new management didn't stop with the Veolia spinoff, the company also sold Universal Studios to GE's NBC subsidiary.
Vivendi would not be such a bizarre beast had it not sold its crown-jewel that tied together its remaining disparate parts: a European wireless telecom business, Universal Music, video game publisher Vivendi Games and French pay-TV business Canal Plus. Perhaps if the company were more cohesive, then analysts and journalists wouldn't speculate about what will become of this strange creature. —Matthew Wurtzel
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