Vivendi

About Vivendi

Vivendi SE is the French media and investment company registered in Paris under SIREN 343 134 763, with LEI 969500FU4DRAEVJW7U54 and its seat at 42 avenue de Friedland in the 8th arrondissement; the register gives 30 October 1987 as the creation date of the legal entity and records it as active, in the form of a Societas Europaea.^[1][2] Bolloré SE is its largest shareholder, at 29.90 per cent of the capital,^[3] and GLEIF records Vivendi as directly consolidated by Bolloré SE and ultimately consolidated by the family holding company Bolloré Participations SE.^[4][5] It matters to this site as the company that ended Seagram: Vivendi S.A. acquired sole control over the Canadian drinks and entertainment group The Seagram Company Ltd., cleared by the European Commission with undertakings on 13 October 2000.^[6]

Vivendi notified that transaction to the Commission on 14 July 2000, and the decision sets out its structure: Vivendi and a new holding company were to be merged into a vehicle, Sofiee, to be renamed Vivendi Universal, which would become the ultimate parent of the new group, acquire Seagram, and leave Vivendi's shareholders with 59 per cent of it, Seagram's with 29 per cent and Canal+'s with 12 per cent.^[6] Vivendi Universal was created on 11 December 2000 out of Vivendi, Groupe Canal+ and Seagram, which brought Universal Studios and Universal Music Group into the group; shareholders approved changing the name back to Vivendi on 20 April 2006.^[3] The business line behind the name runs further back than the register date: a water company, Compagnie générale des eaux, was created by imperial decree on 14 December 1853 and announced on 27 March 1998 that it was renaming itself Vivendi.^[3] The register's own date for SIREN 343 134 763, 30 October 1987, is neither that founding nor the 2000 merger that produced Vivendi Universal.^[1][6] Since 2021 the group has been taking itself apart to become an investment company, floating Universal Music Group in September 2021 and spinning off Canal+, Havas and Louis Hachette Group, which began trading on 16 December 2024.^[3]