Havas

About Havas

Havas is the French media and publishing company that grew out of the news agency Charles-Louis Havas founded in 1835; it was listed on the Paris Bourse in 1982 and privatised in 1987, and Vivendi took full control in March 1998.^[1] Renamed Vivendi Universal Publishing on 11 December 2000,^[1] it sold its publishing houses in 2002 but remained a Vivendi company: as Vivendi Publishing it was described in 2005, 2006 and 2007 as a 99 per cent subsidiary of Vivendi,^[2] and it has been in voluntary liquidation since its dissolution took effect on 18 December 2006.^[3] It is on this site as the company that took Générale Occidentale, publisher of L'Express, Le Point, Courrier International and Le Vif, from Alcatel Alsthom in October 1995 in exchange for a 21.2 per cent stake in Havas.^[4]

The listed Havas SA (SIREN 542103312) closed in the French business register on 14 May 1998.^[5] On 17 June 1998 the register recorded a contribution of assets from Compagnie Générale des Eaux (CGE) to Havas Media Communication, a company registered in 1982, which took the name Havas; that company, SIREN 324992635, is the one renamed Vivendi Universal Publishing and then, in 2006, Vivendi Publishing.^[3][6] Compagnie Générale des Eaux, which renamed itself Vivendi in 1998, had bought a third of Havas in February 1997 and the remainder in March 1998 in a deal that valued the company at about 6 billion euros.^[1] On 20 December 2002 Natexis Banques Populaires bought the assets of Vivendi Universal Publishing through Investima 10, to hold them for the Lagardère group while competition approval was pending;^[7] Vivendi Universal reported the European publishing assets as sold in 2002, while Vivendi Universal Games stayed with it.^[8] Wikipedia describes the deal as a sale of Vivendi Universal Publishing itself; the buyer took the name Editis in October 2003, and during 2004 40 per cent of the assets went to Lagardère and 60 per cent to Wendel.^[9] The company absorbed Havas Informatique in 2001 and Vivendi Universal Information in a merger effective 1 January 2005.^[3] The group's advertising arm, Eurocom, had been renamed Havas Advertising in 1996; it bought the Havas name back from Vivendi and became Havas at its annual meeting on 23 May 2002.^[1]