Vivendi sells £2bn in shares to lower debt

Claire Billings,

January 07, 2002

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Vivendi sells £2bn in shares to lower debt

LONDON - Franco-American media giant Vivendi Universal is to raise £2bn in a share offer designed to help wipe some of the £5.3bn debt it amassed through its acquisition of Seagram and the half of Canal+ it did not already own.

Through financial institutions Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, Vivendi is selling 55m shares at between €60 and €61 each. The stock last closed at €62.5 and was trading at €59.80, down 4.3%, in mid-morning trading in Paris today.

The offering will enable Vivendi to meet its 2002 debt targets.

Vivendi, the former French utilities company previously called Generale-des-Eaux, has grown substantially in the last year to become one of the world's largest media companies under an aggressive strategy overseen by chief executive Jean Marie-Messier.

At the end of 2001, Vivendi announced it is paying £7bn for the entertainment assets of Barry Diller's USA Networks, a move which will give it an important foothold in the US.

Vivendi helped fund the sale by selling part of its stake in UK broadcaster BSkyB for £1bn.

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