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L’homme d’affaires, dont le groupe est entré l’an passé dans le giron de Vivendi, ne possède désormais plus que 5 % du capital de l’empire bâti par son père, et 4,49 % de ses droits de vote.

L’été 2024 est celui du grand délestage pour Arnaud Lagardère, l’unique hériter d’un empire passé à l’automne dernier sous le contrôle de Vivendi et de son actionnaire de référence, Vincent Bolloré. Depuis le mois de juin, la participation qu’il détient au capital du groupe fondé par son père a fondu de moitié, passant de 11,11 % à 5,12 % en date du 19 août. « J’ai vendu pour solder mon endettement, qui est presque à zéro, et sera bientôt à zéro », explique au Figaro Arnaud Lagardère. Ce dernier ne détient plus que 4,49 % des droits de vote du groupe qui porte son nom.

La mise en examen fin avril pour « abus de biens sociaux » du PDG, soupçonné par les enquêteurs du Parquet national financier d’avoir financé son train de vie luxueux avec l’argent de ses sociétés, a changé la donne pour l’homme d’affaires qui affirmait encore quelques mois auparavant vouloir repasser au-dessus de la barre des 15 % du capital.

8 millions d’actions cédées à Vivendi

Selon les documents de l’Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) que Le Figaro a pu consulter, Arnaud Lagardère a cédé depuis le 5 juin dernier à Vivendi, à travers son véhicule Arjil Commanditée-Arco et son holding personnel Lagardère Capital, près de 8,5 millions d’actions au prix unitaire de 24,10 euros. Vivendi a choisi de prolonger jusqu’à juin 2025 la période durant laquelle des actionnaires minoritaires comme Arnaud Lagardère ou Bernard Arnault peuvent apporter leurs titres à la branche subsidiaire de son offre publique d’achat.

Avec ces près de 205 millions d’euros encaissés en l’espace de quelques semaines, Arnaud Lagardère compte apurer ses dettes fiscales, qui s’élèveraient, selon Le Monde, à plusieurs dizaines de millions d’euros, auprès de l’État français. La vente de ces titres servira également au remboursement du crédit accordé à Lagardère Capital par le Crédit agricole il y a plus de quinze ans (contracté à l’époque pour racheter des actions de son groupe). Selon nos informations, il lui restait l’an passé environ 150 millions d’euros à rembourser à la banque française dirigée par Philippe Brassac.

À lire aussiJean-Christophe Thiery remplace à titre provisoire Arnaud Lagardère à la tête de son groupe

« Il vend au plus offrant et fait une bonne affaire d’un point de vue strictement financier, glisse un analyste. Pour ce qui est de son image, déjà bien écornée au sein des milieux d’affaires français, c’est une autre histoire… » À la Bourse de Paris, l’action de Lagardère s’échangeait autour de 22 euros, mardi après-midi, en hausse de 2 % sur les douze derniers mois.

«Je suis dans une position d’acheteur»

Désormais, une question taraude les observateurs de la saga Lagardère : débarrassé de ses dettes, Arnaud Lagardère finira-t-il par apporter le reste de ses titres à Vivendi pour tourner définitivement la page de l’aventure familiale ? « Je suis désormais à nouveau dans une position d’acheteur », assure-t-il aujourd’hui au Figaro.

Après une brève interdiction de gérer décidée par le juge dans la foulée de sa mise en examen, Arnaud Lagardère, qui avait fait appel de la décision, a retrouvé fin juin ses mandats opérationnels de PDG de Lagardère, de PDG de la filiale Hachette ainsi que sa casquette de gérant des radios Europe 1, Europe 2 et RFM. L’homme d’affaires n’a, en revanche, pas retrouvé les mandats sur ses holdings.

Les accords entre la famille Bolloré et Arnaud Lagardère prévoient que ce dernier, âgé de 63 ans, reste à la tête du groupe jusqu’à la fin de son mandat, en 2027. « Je souhaite rester PDG aussi longtemps que la famille Bolloré me fera confiance, leur limite sera la mienne », affirme Arnaud Lagardère, en attendant les prochaines étapes de la procédure judiciaire. Avec seulement 4,49 % des droits de vote, son pouvoir décisionnaire sur le sort de certains actifs de Lagardère, comme le travel retail (boutiques Relay dans les gares et les aéroports), qui aiguise les appétits en cette période faste pour le secteur, s’est en tout cas déjà considérablement réduit.

Chris Morvillo: missing trial lawyer who helped Mike Lynch walk free

Clifford Chance partner was aboard Autonomy founder’s yacht to celebrate courtroom victory

Clifford Chance litigator Christopher Morvillo wrote his first LinkedIn post in June, to celebrate the acquittal of his client Mike Lynch after a 12-year legal battle.

“I am so glad to be home”, Morvillo wrote, signing off: “And they all lived happily ever after . . . ”

That turned out to be one of the last posts he would write before a holiday to honour the stunning courtroom victory turned to disaster. In the early hours of Monday, the Lynch family’s luxury yacht Bayesian sank in severe weather off Sicily, leaving Morvillo, his wife, Neda, and Lynch among the six missing.

The 59-year-old Morvillo, a member of a renowned dynasty of New York litigators, and fellow Clifford Chance lawyer Ayla Ronald, who was rescued along with her partner, were gathered on the yacht to toast Lynch’s acquittal. For Morvillo, the trip capped more than a decade’s work helping to lead the defence of one of Silicon Valley’s biggest fraud cases.  

Morvillo’s role in the case began in 2012, when the former Autonomy chief executive was accused of falsely inflating revenues at the UK software company ahead of its $11bn sale to Hewlett-Packard in 2011. The long battle that ensued saw Lynch extradited to the US and subjected to house arrest under 24-hour surveillance ahead of the trial.

In a legal podcast released last week, Morvillo said he flew to London to meet Lynch on Thanksgiving weekend in 2012, assuming he would be gone for a week, then “spent a significant portion of the rest of my life bouncing back and forth between London and New York”.

The case has “covered one-third of my career”, he told the For the Defense podcast. “It has been a constant presence in my life for the last 12 years.”

Steptoe senior counsel Reid Weingarten, who worked in tandem for years with Morvillo as part of the entrepreneur’s phalanx of lawyers, told the Financial Times on Tuesday that he was “devastated and shocked” about the tragedy. He called him a “wonderful lawyer” who was “on top of the world” before the trip.

“When the Mike Lynch representation came to me, Clifford Chance was representing [Lynch] in England and I had to decide whether to use Clifford Chance on the American side for the criminal probe,” he added. “I sat down with Chris and immediately fell in love. The rest was history.

“Chris is like my brother, is a wonderful lawyer, and ‘wonderful lawyer’ is the least interesting thing about him,” added Weingarten, who credited the lawyer with the smooth running of the transatlantic co-operation on the case.

Morvillo cut his teeth as a federal prosecutor, working on cases related to the 9/11 attacks and securing the conviction of lawyer Lynne Stewart for assisting terrorism during his time as assistant US attorney for the Southern District of New York between 1999 and 2005.

He joined Clifford Chance after leaving the New York trial firm where he worked with his father, white-collar criminal defence attorney Robert Morvillo, renowned for defending Manhattan clients including Martha Stewart in her insider-trading case, and Hank Greenberg, the former AIG boss.

Chris and his brothers Greg, Scott and Robert worked together at Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, Anello & Bohrer, alongside their father, before his death. Weingarten said the brothers were a “New York Italian family and so fun to be around”.

Alongside his work on Lynch’s trial, Morvillo garnered acclaim in recent years for a precedent-setting defence of UK businessman Lawrence Hoskins, securing his acquittal on US bribery charges after an eight-and-a-half-year case ending in 2022.

Another “magic circle” lawyer who worked with Morvillo said: “As well as being brilliant at what he did — you have Autonomy but also the Hoskins case to show for that — he is the most incredibly friendly, collaborative colleague and partner that you could imagine.

“He’s funny, too. Everyone who has worked with him, and for him, we all love him.”

The families of Chris and Neda Morvillo said they remained hopeful for their safe return: “Chris and Neda are each known for their professional successes, Chris as a distinguished attorney and Neda as a skilled jewellery designer, but their true talent is that of mother and father, son and daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt and friends.”

On Tuesday Clifford Chance said it was “deeply saddened by this tragic incident”, adding: “Our utmost priority is providing support to [Morvillo’s] family as well as our colleague Ayla Ronald, who together with her partner, thankfully survived the incident.

Ronald, who grew up in New Zealand, was part of the Clifford Chance team advising Lynch. She was rescued from the Bayesian along with her partner, Matthew Fletcher.

Speaking to the Telegraph newspaper on Monday, her father, Lin Ronald, said his daughter had been “acting in some fashion as a co-ordinator with the medics”.

He added that his daughter — whose handle on X is aylathesailor — is a keen yachtswoman. “She was brought up on a yacht. I was a cruising sailor and she was almost born on a yacht in Cooktown in Australia. We just managed to get her mother off to hospital just moments before the birth.”

Her X profile currently reads: “Sitting, waiting, wishing”.

Former Prudential chief was on board sunken yacht with British tech founder

Jonathan Bloomer, who is among the missing after a luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily, capped a long career as an accountant and insurance executive with an unusual star turn: defence witness in Mike Lynch’s San Francisco trial.

Lynch, who is also missing after the yacht Bayesian foundered in bad weather on Monday, was accused of fraud over the sale of his software company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard for $11bn in 2011.

The 70-year-old Bloomer, who was named to Autonomy’s board as a non-executive in 2010, told the court in May that Lynch “wasn’t particularly interested in the finance side” and preferred to focus on strategy and products. A day later, Lynch took the stand himself and in June he was acquitted.

Bloomer and his wife, Judy, who is also missing, were among the guests invited to Lynch’s yacht to celebrate the victory.

Bloomer is best known for his time at the helm of FTSE 100 insurer Prudential, which he joined as finance director from accountancy firm Arthur Andersen in 1995. Within five years he had ascended to the top job.

Aviva chair George Culmer, who was Prudential’s financial controller, recalled a very smart executive who was always “gracious, charming, affable and fair”. “He always built very good teams,” said Culmer. “People were loyal to him. They would follow him.”

Bloomer’s time as Prudential chief executive was turbulent, coinciding with the dotcom crash and the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York. While he was credited with spearheading the group’s growth in Asia and bringing down costs, shareholders were dealt a number of disappointments that ultimately led to his exit after five years in the job. 

First came an unsuccessful multibillion-pound effort to buy US insurer American General and absorb it into the Pru’s US arm in 2002, which was heavily criticised by shareholders and knocked the company’s share price.

Then, in 2003, Bloomer cut the dividend for the first time since the first world war to shore up the company’s depleted capital, despite repeated assurances the group planned to keep raising the payout.

After the launch of a surprise £1bn rights issue in 2004 and despite previous support from Prudential chair David Clementi, he was ousted in a boardroom coup and replaced by Mark Tucker in 2005. 

“He was not a natural CEO,” said one former colleague. “He wasn’t ruthless enough. He was too trusting.”

After his decade at Prudential, Bloomer joined private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management as European partner, where he remained for six years until 2012. 

In the years that followed his exit from the Pru, Bloomer had a plural career, combining a clutch of non-executive roles that included the position as audit committee chair at Autonomy that would put him at the centre of a case in which it was alleged Lynch’s software company falsely inflated its revenues.

Bloomer told the court that he met Lynch at a conference in the early 2000s. Autonomy’s chairman, Robert Webb, approached him around 2010 looking for a board director who “understood the city” and could “think about the way Autonomy was seen” there.

HP argued that Autonomy used lossmaking hardware sales to make up shortfalls in its quarterly revenues. Big-ticket hardware sales would have been noted in Autonomy’s audit reports, which would have been reviewed by Bloomer as part of his boardroom role. 

During his testimony at trial, Bloomer explained that some of the accounting later flagged as suspicious by US prosecutors was acceptable under UK rules.

Associates described Bloomer as a man of humble background who found it easy to connect with colleagues and inspire loyalty, while also maintaining a certain distance.

“He didn’t like hierarchy or status,” said one senior insurance executive. “But he also liked to dress well in nice suits and he enjoyed the finer things in life.”

A physics graduate of Imperial College London, Bloomer founded a pension buyout business, Lucida, backed by Cerberus, which was sold to Legal & General in 2013.

The sailing and rugby enthusiast also served on the boards of several financial services companies, including legal services company DWF Group and Arrow Global, a European investment firm. 

Sir Nicholas Lyons, the former Lord Mayor who championed the Mansion House Compact to promote more productive investment, said Bloomer had been a keen advocate of the initiative. 

“He was very supportive of the agenda and of getting financial services back into the spotlight of the economy,” Lyons said.

Bloomer’s highest-profile recent roles have been at Morgan Stanley International, the UK-based arm of the Wall Street bank, where he has chaired the board since 2018, and London-listed insurer Hiscox, where he has served as non-executive chair since last year.

“We are deeply shocked and saddened by this tragedy. Our thoughts are with all those affected, in particular the Bloomer family, as we all wait for further news from this terrible situation,” a Morgan Stanley spokesperson said. 

Hiscox’s chief executive Aki Hussain said the company was “deeply shocked and saddened by this tragic event”. 

Billionaire investor secures funding to improve $4.3bn offer to media scion Shari Redstone

Edgar Bronfman Jr has raised up to $5.5bn to sweeten a last-minute offer for Paramount and gatecrash the Hollywood company’s agreed deal with Skydance Media, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The billionaire media investor made an initial $4.3bn bid on Monday night before Wednesday’s expiration of Paramount’s 45-day “go shop” period, according to four people with knowledge of the move and a copy of the offer letter seen by the Financial Times.

But the former Warner Music chief executive intends to improve those terms in the coming days after securing more commitments from a broad group of investors, two of those people said.

According to people close to the matter, Bronfman has secured commitments from investors including Fortress, which is controlled by Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala investment arm.

Other backers include private equity group BC Partners Credit, film producer Steven Paul, crypto entrepreneur Brock Pierce and Nurali Aliyev, the tech entrepreneur and grandson of the autocratic former ruler of Kazakhstan, these people said.

Bronfman, Skydance, Fortress and BC Partners Credit declined to comment. Paramount, Paul, Pierce and Aliyev could not immediately be reached for comment.

Bronfman’s group is still pursuing further funding, one person familiar with the matter said.

The decision to take on foreign investment is likely to attract the attention of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, the multi-agency body known as Cfius that vets deals for national security risks. Paramount owns CBS News, which has some potential restrictions related to foreign ownership.

In a letter to a special committee of Paramount directors on Monday, Bronfman’s investor group said its offer “represents a much more favourable outcome for Paramount stockholders and creates a far more viable public company than the Skydance deal”. 

“Our proposal eliminates the risks, uncertainties and costs of combining Paramount with Skydance,” the letter added. However, it did not explain how Bronfman’s group planned to address potential Cfius concerns.

It was also unclear how receptive the special committee, chaired by director Charles Phillips, would be to the new offer. Several people, including former and current board members, said that Phillips had in the past tried to torpedo Skydance’s deal.

Bronfman’s move is the latest twist in a long battle over the 98-year-old Paramount Pictures studio. The last big studio left in Los Angeles’ Hollywood district produced cinema classics such as The Godfather and Titanic.

Skydance, the film studio founded by billionaire David Ellison, had agreed to a deal with Paramount in July but had given the Hollywood group until August 21 to entertain a higher offer.

The Skydance deal offered more than $8bn to acquire Paramount. It said it would first pay $2.4bn to buy out Shari Redstone’s National Amusements, which controls 80 per cent of the votes at Paramount despite owning only about 10 per cent of the company through a special type of voting shares.

Following this, Skydance would combine with Paramount in a $4.5bn deal in which it would offer $15 a share to buy out up to half of the non-voting stock, and inject $1.5bn into Paramount’s balance sheet.

The initial Bronfman offer values NAI, the Redstone family holding company that has controlled Paramount since 1994, at $2.4bn including debt, the people said. NAI also declined to comment.

Bronfman, the 69-year-old heir to the Seagram spirits family that once controlled Universal Studios and PolyGram, also offered to match Skydance’s planned $1.5bn injection into Paramount and pay Ellison’s company $400mn to terminate its existing deal, they added. But his initial bid lacked any clear offer for Paramount’s non-voting shareholders.

But Bronfman is planning an improved bid that is likely to offer better terms for Paramount’s non-voting shareholders, according to people with direct knowledge of the talks.

Bronfman is being advised by Perella Weinberg Partners, UBS and Rockefeller Capital Management on the financial terms of the deal, according to the offer letter, while Skadden is providing legal advice.

Skydance, which is backed by US private equity group RedBird Capital and David Ellison’s father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, is likely to argue that Bronfman’s bid leaves nothing for Paramount’s shareholders, while giving him full control.

Bronfman’s rebuttal is expected to be that his offer will dilute Paramount’s existing shareholders less than under Skydance’s proposal.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Bronfman’s $4.3bn offer on Tuesday.

‘The Kingdom: The World’s Most Powerful Prince’ charts the rise of the formidable, controversial MBS

As the seventh child of the 25th son of the founder and first absolute monarch of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman was not destined for the throne when he entered politics as a 24-year-old in 2009. But in the past decade this peripheral scion of the ruling dynasty has established himself as a central, towering figure, both at home — where he has been de facto leader as crown prince since 2017 — and on the world stage.

A new two-part BBC documentary, The Kingdom: The World’s Most Powerful Prince, draws on the insights of biographers, journalists, diplomats, spies, confidants and dissidents to chart Prince Mohammed’s remarkable rise and to break down the multitude of facets of “MBS”.

The first episode, which traces the period leading up to Prince Mohammed’s appointment as heir apparent to his father, ailing head of state King Salman bin Abdulaziz, has the makings of a prestige drama with its plots, political manoeuvres and power struggles within the extended royal family. But the claim by exiled former official Saad al-Jabri that Prince Mohammed forged his father’s signature on a royal decree sanctioning military interventions in Yemen in 2015 is both revelatory and potentially deeply damaging. (The Saudi authorities did not respond to a request for comment about this allegation.)

The second episode discusses one of the darkest chapters of MBS’s rule — the brutal murder of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. While Prince Mohammed has repeatedly denied direct responsibility, with Riyadh blaming the killing on a rogue operation, the documentary considers why the international community, and the US in particular, has been hesitant in holding the Saudi regime to account over this and myriad other accusations of human rights abuse, press suppression and detentions.

But this show is more than a catalogue of controversies. Alongside chilling allegations are reflections on how Prince Mohammed has loosened the religious orthodoxy’s grip on the country, granted more rights to women, diversified the economy and brought world-leading sport and record-breaking art acquisitions to entertain locals, entice tourists and distract everyone from the more unsavoury aspects of the regime.

If across its two hours Kingdom paints a vivid portrait of a Machiavellian prince, it leaves us with a rather hazier image of who Prince Mohammed is outside of the public eye or political arena. If he was something of an unknown early in his career, the impression is that he is now unknowable, unpredictable — and all the more formidable for it.

Episode one available on BBC iPlayer now. Episode two airs on BBC2 on August 26 at 9pm