Vivendi evokes new brands of interest for Universal

Vivendi, which is looking to take advantage of the revival of the music industry with the rise of online listening, announced in August to have discussions with Tencent to sell a stake in UMG likely to reach 20% for a value enterprise of 30 billion euros.
Work on the due diligence process and legal documentation is continuing on this subject and should be finalized in the coming weeks, says Vivendi.
The group controlled by Vincent Bollore has also announced Thursday that "other partners", he did not identify, had manifested themselves eventually to become minority shareholders of UMG "at an equivalent price level "to that envisaged for Tencent.
Universal, which includes artists such as Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and the Beatles in its catalog, has also boosted Vivendi's sales in the third quarter with organic growth of 15.7% to 1.8 billion euros .
The group's total revenue in the third quarter was 3.97 billion euros, up 7.2%. Analysts' consensus was $ 3.85 billion, according to Credit Suisse.
Universal's good health contrasts with the continuing difficulties of Canal +, the Group's second division, whose turnover contracted by 0.9% to 1.285 billion euros over the July-September period.

(Mathieu Rosemain and Sudip Kar-Gupta, Bertrand Boucey for French Service, edited by Jean-Michel Belot)