Lagardere preparing piecemeal sale of Lagardere Active media and internet assets
Lagardere [EPA: MMB], the French media and entertainment group, is understood to be preparing a piecemeal sale of the media and internet assets of its Lagardere Active subsidiary, French daily Le Figaro reported. The report referred to an internal message from Denis Olivennes, head of Lagardere Active, announcing that the company will be reorganised into five “autonomous” divisions that can operate individually. The report cited a labour union source as claiming that the group will create nine independent companies with the aim of selling the businesses separately.
The assets up for sale include the international radios and the children TV businesses Tiji and Gulli. The report named French groups M6 [EPA: MMT], TF1 [EPA: TFI], Vivendi's Canal Plus, and Mediawan [EPA: MDW] as potential buyers.
The publishing assets that Lagardere could group together with a view of selling them include the Ici Paris, Public, France Dimanche, Tele 7 Jours, Version Femina, Art & Decoration, and Elle magazines. Those assets generate operating profits of EUR 20m annually, the report said.
According to the report, the project to merge Lagardere’s publishing assets with those of Mondadori France has been ruled out at the moment.
Finally, Lagardere could also decide to sell its internet businesses separately, such as consumer-orientated BilletReduc and Doctissimo, as well as BtoB companies Plurimedia and Newsweb.
According to the report, the total proceeds from the sales could amount to between EUR 400m and EUR 700m, with the Lagardere group focusing on its travel retail and book publishing activities.
The publishing assets could be worth between EUR 30m and EUR 60m, the internet assets between EUR 50m and EUR 100m, EUR 50-EUR 100m for the international radios, the TV assets between EUR 150m and EUR 200m, and EUR 120-EUR 300m for the publishing licenses.