The European Commission gave, Friday, June 9, the green light “under certain conditions” to the takeover of the Lagardère group, parent company of the third world publisher Hachette Livre, by the French media giant Vivendi, she said. announced in a press release.
Vivendi had agreed to sell the magazine Gala as well as its publishing activities – Editis and its entities, including Robert Laffont, Nathan, Le Robert and Pocket. These commitments “fully respond to the competition problems identified by the Commission” in its investigation, judged the European executive.
Protect the competition
The Commission feared that the operation, as initially planned, “would harm competition” in publishing throughout the book value chain, where Editis and Hachette are the two main market players, as in the magazine press, where rival Paris Match of Lagardere and Gala from Vivendi.
Vincent Bolloré and his children, who control Vivendi and its holding cascade, had agreed in the summer of 2022 to offload their publishing group, Editis, number 2 on the French market. Editis will finally go into the hands of Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, also a shareholder of Fnac.
And to avoid a dominant position in the people magazine sector, Vivendi has chosen to sacrifice Gala to keep Paris Matchone of Lagardère’s main media with the JDD and radio Europe 1.
Conquest of Lagardere
The Commission estimated in a press release that these divested assets “constitute a viable activity which would allow a potential buyer to compete effectively” with the group resulting from the Lagardère/Vivendi merger. “The Commission’s decision is subject to full compliance with the commitments entered into”, and the implementation of the transfers will be monitored “by an independent agent under the supervision of the Commission”, which will also assess “the suitability of the buyers” in under a separate approval procedure.
The conquest of Lagardère is a key step in the refocusing of the Bolloré family on media and publishing, a sector in which it wishes to weigh beyond French borders. With Hachette, which notably owns the Grasset, Fayard, Stock and Calmann-Lévy publishing houses, it will be able to compete with the German Bertelsmann, a family group combining books and audiovisual.
Vivendi had launched its assault in early 2020 when the former industrial and media empire was at its worst, weakened by the Covid-19 pandemic and its boss Arnaud Lagardère at bay, sued by an activist fund and heavily in debt.