The intention of listed on the Universal Music Stock Exchange and to distribute 60% of the capital to the shareholders as “special dividend” sends the stock of Vivendi into orbit, which controls UMPG, and makes Bolloré shares soar, which in turn owns 27% of the media group's shares.
Vivendi said in a statement released on Saturday that "for many years Vivendi's large institutional investors have been calling for the demerger or distribution of Universal Music Group to decrease Vivendi's conglomerate discount." The French giant has therefore decided to please them, by distributing 60% of the capital to the shareholders of its subsidiary as an extraordinary dividend and subsequently listing Universal Music Group on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. The Vivendi board of directors also proposed the distribution of an ordinary dividend of 60 cents per share for the 2020 financial year.
Vivendi added that the deal has received the green light from a consortium led by the Chinese tech group Tencent, which controls 20% of Universal, after having bought the stake in two tranches (the second a few weeks ago) which valued Universal at 30 billion euros.
The news announced two days ago seems to please investors a lot. Since this morning the Vivendi title it runs like hell and in mid-afternoon it rises by more than 19% to 31,25 euros per share. They also take the wake the shares of Groupe Bolloré, which in turn rose by 13,63% to 1,1180 euros.
“The plan to list Universal is part of a process launched by Vivendi's main shareholder, French billionaire Vincent Bolloré, to monetize the moment of recovery of the recording industry”, he observes Reuters.
Vivendi also announced that the extraordinary shareholders' meeting will meet on March 29 to amend the company's articles of association and allow for the distribution of the extraordinary dividend, expected by the end of the year. Instead, the go-ahead of the ordinary shareholders' meeting convened for 22 June will suffice for the ok to the ordinary dividend.
Universal Music is a music industry giant that together with Warner Music and Sony Music controls the entire market. Last December Umpg brought home what was called “the musical chord of the century”, acquiring the entire music catalog of Bob Dylan for about 300 million dollars. In addition to Dylan, Universal is also the label of singers such as Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry.
