Vivendi sells off 22% BSkyB stake to Deutsche Bank

LONDON - Vivendi Universal has sold its 22% stake in BSkyB to Deutsche Bank for €4.2bn, one of the conditions imposed on the company by European competition regulators in return for approval of its £24bn takeover of the Seagram drinks business.

The European regulators forced Vivendi to dispose of its stake in BSkyB because it thought the French media giant would wield too much control of the European pay-TV market.



Vivendi also owns French-based pay-TV operator Canal+, which has operations in several European markets.



Meanwhile Vivendi Universal has formally denied earlier reports that the company is thinking about withdrawing from Vizzavi, the mobile internet portal, and that the business is to make swingeing job cuts.



Reports in this morning's press said that Vizzavi, which is a joint venture between Vivendi and Vodafone, was failing to live up to its shareholders expectations and missed a self imposed subscriber number target of 2m users by the end of June.



Jean-Marie Messier, Vivendi Universal chairman and chief executive, said in June that Vizzavi would have signed up almost 3m subscribers during the summer.




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