TheChek News Flow

Expected €6bn-€8bn IPO is set to be the largest listing in City since 2022

The irony that a French company is set to become the largest flotation in London for more than two years, a time when homegrown corporate successes have shifted to the US, has not been lost on bankers in the City. 

Canal+ is not just any French company, but one that carries deep “cultural significance” across the channel, according to Maxime Saada, who heads the streaming giant and film producer that is part of Vivendi, the media conglomerate controlled by the billionaire Bolloré family. 

Coming just weeks after Canal+ put on the Paddington in Peru premiere in London, the UK stock exchange has rolled out its own version of a red carpet after ministers overhauled and streamlined listing rules for the first time in 30 years this summer. Saada said that London’s markets revamp “to make it as easy, as smooth as possible” was a major factor in picking the UK capital.

Canal+, which has a book value of close to €7bn, is expected to have a market capitalisation of between €6bn and €8bn, said people close to the listing. This would make it the largest primary listing in London since Haleon was spun out of GSK in 2022 at a market valuation of about £30bn, during a period of remarkable drought for a global stock exchange that led to concerns over its rules and lack of domestic UK investor appetite. 

Canal+, which has produced hits including Versailles, is the largest of three businesses being spun out of Vivendi. If a $2.9bn deal to acquire South Africa’s MultiChoice completes early next year, the combined business could be worth as much as €10bn, according to those close to the deal.

With the Bollorés having long argued that the French market’s valuation of the Vivendi business is less than the sum of its parts, the split will test how much more the company’s divisions will be valued separately.

Saada now needs to convince UK investors that Canal+ — like Paddington — has found its right home in London, with plans to use the country as a launch pad for global expansion that he hopes could double the size of the business.

There have been just over a dozen primary listings in London this year, according to data compiled by MKP Advisors, the biggest of which was Raspberry Pi at about £540mm. Bankers struggle to remember the last time that a major French company has crossed the channel for London.

Speaking in an office in the Parisian suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux that will continue to be the headquarters for Canal+, Saada admits that the decision to relocate the company’s ownership to the London stock exchange disappointed some in the Elysée.

He has sought to allay concerns in France — where it will also continue paying tax — but has also made it clear that the future of the company lies elsewhere, with London bringing greater visibility as a global company and access to international investors. 

“I believe [the French authorities] are relieved that the company headquarters and tax structure is [in] France. We’re not the first French company [to list elsewhere]. Of course, there are some adverse reactions and some people are disappointed. But when we tell our story . . . they understand.”

Canal+ has close to 27mn subscribers to its streaming and TV platforms across 50 countries, of which about 60 per cent are outside France, alongside a TV and films studio arm. In the first nine months of 2024, the company reported a 3.2 per cent rise in revenues to €4.72bn.

“When we look at the path for the future, the partners, the competitors, the markets, the investors, almost all of them are English speaking,” said Saada.

“We used to be a French company, completely relying on the French market for its revenues, its profits, its rights and most of its stuff. And we have transformed into a company that is now international. I cannot say global yet, but that’s the plan.”

M&A will form part of this plan. Adding MultiChoice’s African business, Canal+ will have more than 40mn subscribers; Saada wants to take this to 100mn.

“We don’t want to overextend ourselves, and we’re very careful on the way we spend money. But we need scale. At 27mn [subscribers], you are already a sizeable player. At 40mn/50mn, you are definitely a contender. Higher than that, it’s interesting. That is the only topic.”

Canal+ is already considering taking a majority stake in Asian streamer Viu, while Saada says that Viaplay, the Scandinavian steaming service, could be another potential target. 

Vivendi became the largest shareholder after an emergency recapitalisation of the Nordic media company this year, although it has signed a standstill agreement with the second-biggest investor, the Czech group PPF.

“It’s a possibility. And there are others. If you look at significant pay TV players in the world, there are others. I want to be in a position where we can be a consolidator,” said Saada.

He says that the company was attracted by the new flexibility in rules for the London stock exchange, with the company in effect set to operate a hybrid of French rules allowed under its incorporation in that country and London’s regime.

“We started speaking [with the LSE] about what it means to be a company headquartered in France and listed in the UK. We are the only of our kind, I believe. So it means that not all rules will apply to us.”

These include London’s rules that board members be subject to re-election annually, he said, with Vivendi instead implementing the French standard of more than three years. The Bolloré family will also retain a stake of about 30 per cent in London-listed Canal+, equivalent to what it owns in Vivendi.

As a result, Canal+ is unlikely to be eligible for inclusion in the FTSE 100 rankings. But Saada said that the company was already attracting interest from investors in the UK, even if the company was still not clearly understood by all in the market. He pointed to the need to show the capabilities of the company’s streaming platform, which bundles together content from most of the large US streamers as well as hundreds of live channels and sports. 

Not all existing investors are happy, however. Paris-based asset manager CIAM has raised concerns that minority shareholders will take a hit and that the plan will not close the conglomerate discount. It also warned that the family could also increase its stake without launching a full takeover.

Vivendi declined at the time to comment but a person with knowledge of the situation said the group’s plan “was built on shareholder democracy”.

Saada added: “My focus is, and I believe that is what the Bollorés have proven in the past, to increase the valuation of the company for all shareholders.” 

The decision to split Vivendi is subject to a shareholder meeting on December 9, which requires two-thirds of votes to pass. Saada is confident that it will.

By mid-December, he hopes to be at the front of London’s stock exchange to celebrate its first day of trading. And, despite requests, he says Paddington and his marmalade sandwiches will not be with him this time.

Billionaire’s rocket builder plots huge share sale while AI start-up closes in on $5bn funding round

Two of Elon Musk’s private companies are set to secure multibillion-dollar jumps in valuation through new deals, as investors race to back the sprawling business interests of the world’s richest man.

SpaceX, the largest private company in the US, is preparing to launch a tender offer in December that will sell existing shares in the business at about $135 each, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. That would value the rocket builder at more than $250bn, up from about $210bn during a similar deal earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Musk’s artificial intelligence start-up xAI has raised $5bn at a valuation of $45bn, almost double its valuation a few months ago, according to the people. The fundraising has been carried out at breakneck speed as discussions between Musk and his investors began just last month.

The double fundraising comes as Musk expands his focus beyond Silicon Valley to Washington DC, having helped to deliver the US election to Donald Trump earlier this month and becoming a key confidant to the president-elect.

On Tuesday, Trump appointed Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur and former presidential hopeful, to lead a new “department of government efficiency”. It will “provide advice and guidance from outside of government” and look for ways to “dismantle” bureaucracy, Trump said in a statement.

Musk’s proximity to Trump has also helped to boost the share price of Tesla, the electric vehicle-maker he runs as chief executive, by almost 30 per cent since the November 5 election.

The people close to the xAI fundraising said the deal had been “fully allocated”, meaning all of the new shares had been assigned to investors, although it will not formally close until the end of the month. They added that the deal was oversubscribed and featured only investors who had backed the start-up in its previous fundraising round.

The significant interest in xAI, which operates a ChatGPT rival called Grok, has fuelled Musk’s efforts to compete with rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic.

It has also already prompted speculation about a subsequent fundraising in the first quarter of next year that could value the company as high as $75bn, according to two of the people. However, it was not yet clear if this had been communicated directly to investors by xAI.

xAI has been developing an enormous cluster of 100,000 graphics processing units, the chips used to train and run AI tools, in Memphis. The project, nicknamed Colossus, would be one of the biggest supercomputers in the world. Musk’s AI systems are likely to play a critical role across his many enterprises, which include X, Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink.

SpaceX is also likely to benefit from closeness to Trump. As well as a long-stated ambition to launch a mission to Mars, Musk wants to add to the company’s network of 6,000 low Earth orbit satellites that constitute its Starlink broadband network. The billionaire has also regularly fought battles with an array of US regulators that he believes have stymied Tesla and SpaceX.

Musk and SpaceX did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The tech billionaire, a top adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump, was reported to have discussed ways to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States.

Elon Musk, a close adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump, met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday in New York in a session that two Iranian officials described as a discussion of how to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States.

The Iranians said the meeting between Mr. Musk and Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani lasted more than an hour and was held at a secret location. The Iranians, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss policy publicly, described the meeting as “positive” and “good news.”

Asked about whether there was such a session, Steven Cheung, Mr. Trump’s communications director, said, “We do not comment on reports of private meetings that did or did not occur.” Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

Karoline Leavitt, the transition spokeswoman for the incoming Trump-Vance administration, said in a statement: “The American people re-elected President Trump because they trust him to lead our country and restore peace through strength around the world. When he returns to the White House, he will take the necessary action to do just that.”

An early direct meeting between a senior Iranian official and Mr. Musk raises the possibility of a change in tone between Tehran and Washington under the Trump administration, despite a charged history between the president-elect and Iran. One of the Iranian officials said that it was Mr. Musk who had requested the meeting and that the ambassador picked the site.

During his first term Mr. Trump pulled the United States out of the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and world powers, calling it “a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made,” and imposed tough economic sanctions on Iranian oil revenues and international banking transactions. He also ordered the assassination of a top Iranian general, Qassim Suleimani, in Iraq in 2020.

In response, Iran’s supreme leader banned any negotiations with the Trump administration and Iranian officials vowed to avenge Mr. Suleimani’s killing. Federal prosecutors said in a court filing last week that Iran had plotted to assassinate Mr. Trump before the election.

But in the wake of Mr. Trump’s election last week, Iran has been openly debating whether it can now reach a new and more lasting deal with the United States. Many members of President Masoud Pezeshkian’s new government favor negotiating, arguing that Mr. Trump likes to make deals and that there may be an opportunity to get the sanctions lifted.

Many in the conservative faction in Iran oppose engagement with Mr. Trump, and any negotiations — or deal — must be approved by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Mr. Trump has been an avid supporter of Israel, which has been waging war on the Iranian-backed militias Hamas and Hezbollah since the Oct. 7 attack last year.

On Thursday, in a post on X, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said: “Differences can be resolved through cooperation and dialogue. We agreed to proceed with courage and good will. Iran has never left the negotiation table on its peaceful nuclear program.”

Mr. Araghchi made the comments following a meeting in Tehran with Rafael Grossi, the head of the U.N.’s atomic watchdog.

Analysts said that for all the history of bad blood with Mr. Trump, the Iranians appeared to want to keep the door to diplomacy open. Mr. Trump, too, appears interested, they said.

“Overall, everything is possible with Trump,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran director for the International Crisis Group. “He appears to be interested in a deal with Iran.” But some advisers, he said, may favor other approaches, among them increasing the pressure on Iran.

The two Iranian officials said that the meeting with Mr. Musk provided a workaround for Iran, allowing it to avoid sitting directly with an American official. Mr. Musk will, however, have an official role soon. He has been named as the co-director of a new government efficiency agency.

One Iranian Foreign Ministry official said that Ambassador Iravani told Mr. Musk during the meeting that he should obtain sanctions exemptions from the Treasury and bring some of his businesses to Tehran.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations said it would not publicly comment on the meeting.

In a new legal filing, the Tesla chief executive accuses the A.I. start-up of undermining antitrust law.

Elon Musk has amended a lawsuit he brought this year against OpenAI, escalating his yearslong feud with the maker of the online chatbot ChatGPT.

The amended complaint, filed on Thursday in federal court in Northern California, makes new antitrust claims against OpenAI and adds defendants, including the tech giant Microsoft and the venture capitalist Reid Hoffman.

Microsoft is a close partner of OpenAI, after investing more than $13 billion in the start-up. Mr. Hoffman is a Microsoft board member and previously served on the board of OpenAI.

The new legal filing also adds two plaintiffs to the suit alongside Mr. Musk: his start-up xAI, which competes with OpenAI, and Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI board member. Ms. Zilis is now an executive at Mr. Musk’s brain implant company Neuralink and the mother of three of his children.

OpenAI and Mr. Hoffman did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Microsoft declined to comment.

Mr. Musk sued OpenAI in March in a state court in San Francisco, before withdrawing the suit without explanation. Seven weeks later, he filed a new suit in federal court, arguing that OpenAI violated federal racketeering laws by conspiring to defraud him.

Like the original suit, the federal complaint claimed that OpenAI and two of its founders, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, breached the company’s founding contract by putting commercial interests ahead of the public good.

After joining with Mr. Musk to create OpenAI in 2015 and pledging to carefully develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity, the suit claimed, Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman abandoned this mission by entering its multibillion-dollar partnership with Microsoft.

Mr. Musk stepped away from OpenAI in 2018, before that partnership was created.

In the amended complaint, Mr. Musk argued that OpenAI is trying to eliminate competitors like xAI by insisting that its investors refrain from funding these rivals. He also argued that xAI had been harmed because OpenAI’s partnership with Microsoft allowed the two companies to trade “competitively sensitive information.”

Both Mr. Hoffman and Dee Templeton, a Microsoft vice president, had undermined antitrust laws because they were both involved with the boards of Microsoft and OpenAI, according to the complaint.

“The purpose of the prohibition on interlocking directorates is to prevent sharing of competitively sensitive information,” the complaint read.

In adding Ms. Zilis as a plaintiff in the suit, the new filing said that she repeatedly raised concerns over OpenAI’s dealings while serving as a board member. She left the OpenAI board last year.

DAX:

MDAX:

SDAX: