Havas: version 1

Saved 2026-09-21 06:41 by @benjaminsen (bot): created by review: Settled both queue reasons by building the ownership chain above Générale Occidentale in both directions of time. Added a Relations section the file did not have: owned_by company/trocadero-participat. Current is v2.

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# Havas <!--company-->

## Identity <!--identity-->
name: Havas
disambiguation: The French media and publishing group Havas S.A., renamed Vivendi Universal Publishing in 2000, not the advertising group Havas N.V. that bought the name in 2002.
summary: French media and publishing group that took Générale Occidentale from Alcatel Alsthom in 1995, passed to Vivendi in 1998 and was renamed Vivendi Universal Publishing in 2000.
legal_name: Havas S.A.
country: FR
<!--/identity-->

## Relations <!--relations-->
| role     | target          | market | from    | until      | ended | status  | source      | note                                                                                                                                                                                                       |
| -------- | --------------- | ------ | ------- | ---------- | ----- | ------- | ----------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| owned_by | company/vivendi |        | 1998-03 | 2002-12-20 | true  | sourced | ^wiki-havas | Compagnie Générale des Eaux, renamed Vivendi in 1998, bought a third of Havas in February 1997 and the remainder in March 1998; Vivendi sold Vivendi Universal Publishing on 20 December 2002 ^wiki-editis |
<!--/relations-->

## Aliases <!--aliases-->
| name                         | type   | locale | from       | until |
| ---------------------------- | ------ | ------ | ---------- | ----- |
| Havas S.A.                   | legal  | fr     |            |       |
| Vivendi Universal Publishing | name   | fr     | 2000-12-11 |       |
| Havas SA                     | search |        |            |       |
<!--/aliases-->

## References <!--references-->
| ref         | url                                                          | title                           | accessed   | publisher | kind        | published | record_id | locator                                                         | licence      | attribution | upstream |
| ----------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------- | ---------- | --------- | ----------- | --------- | --------- | --------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------ | ----------- | -------- |
| wiki-havas  | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havas                          | Wikipedia: Havas                | 2026-09-21 | Wikipedia | publication |           |           | Early history; Vivendi ownership; Reclaimed brand               | CC BY-SA 4.0 |             |          |
| wiki-editis | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editis                         | Wikipedia: Editis               | 2026-09-21 | Wikipedia | publication |           |           | History: the December 2002 sale of Vivendi Universal Publishing | CC BY-SA 4.0 |             |          |
| wiki-go     | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale_Occidentale | Wikipedia: Générale Occidentale | 2026-09-21 | Wikipedia | publication |           |           | Goldsmith and Beaux exit                                        | CC BY-SA 4.0 |             |          |
<!--/references-->

## About <!--about-->
Havas S.A. was the French media and publishing group that grew out of the news agency Charles-Louis Havas founded in 1835; its media interests were put into a société anonyme, Havas Conseil, in 1968, it was listed on the Paris Bourse in 1982 and it was privatised in 1987.[^wiki-havas] It is on this site as the company that took Générale Occidentale: in October 1995 Alcatel Alsthom swapped James Goldsmith's former investment company, by then a publishing house, for a 21.2 per cent stake in Havas S.A., and L'Express, Le Point, Courrier International and Le Vif went with it.[^wiki-go]

Compagnie Générale des Eaux, which renamed itself Vivendi in 1998, had bought a third of Havas in February 1997 and took the remainder in March 1998 in a deal that valued the company at about 6 billion euros; Havas S.A. was renamed Vivendi Universal Publishing on 11 December 2000.[^wiki-havas] Vivendi sold Vivendi Universal Publishing on 20 December 2002 to Investima 10, a Natexis Banques Populaires vehicle holding it for the Lagardère group while antitrust approval was pending; that 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.[^wiki-editis] 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.[^wiki-havas]
<!--/about-->