Vivendi in negotiations to sell Editis

French media company Vivendi is in exclusive negotiations for the 100% takeover of its subsidiary Editis—France’s second largest publisher—by International Media Invest (IMI), reports the Bookseller.

Last year, Vivendi said it would try to sell off Editis when its planned acquisition of Hachette Livre parent company Lagardère takes place. Prior to this, Vivendi’s plan to merge the two groups was protested by publishers, authors and booksellers.

The European Commission (EC) is currently investigating Vivendi’s takeover of the Lagardère group for anti-trust implications, and the sale of Editis is seen as a measure to facilitate the takeover.

IMI is a subsidiary of Czech Media Invest (CMI), which was founded by Daniel Kretinsky, an indirect shareholder in the Le Monde newspaper. Isabelle Wekstein, a lawyer who represented authors, publishers and booksellers in testimony to the EC, told the Bookseller that while a 100% sale of Editis is ‘an improvement on the initial proposal, we need to know details of Kretinsky’s plan for the group’.

Category: International news