Canal+, Telecom Italia... Le deal secret entre Vivendi et Orange

*ORANGE TO TAKE STAKES IN CANAL PLUS, TELECOM ITALIA: CHALLENGES


EXCLUSIF L’opérateur télécoms ferait son entrée à la fois dans Canal Plus et dans Telecom Italia, deux sociétés dont le principal actionnaire est Vincent Bolloré (Vivendi).


Bolloré qui s’allège en partie du fardeau Canal Plus et Orange qui prend enfin pied en Italie. C’est une opération "win win" qu’a imaginée cet été le banquier d’affaires Jean-Marie Messier. Orange participerait à une recapitalisation de Canal Plus, filiale de Vivendi, pour se retrouver avec environ 20% du capital aux cotés de Vincent Bolloré. Et ce dernier, céderait des actions Telecom Italia à Orange qui prendrait enfin pied dans ce pays. Le deal est loin d’être bouclé. Mais Vincent Bolloré, principal actionnaire et président du conseil de surveillance de Vivendi et le PDG d’Orange Stéphane Richard en ont bien discuté. Leurs équipes se sont même rencontrées récemment sous prétexte d’une renégociation de contrat de diffusion.
Un porte-parole d’Orange, qui ne confirme ni n’infirme ces informations, admet qu’il "n’est pas absurde de réfléchir à ce genre de schéma". Derrière l’entrée dans Canal Plus, ce sont bien entendu les contenus qui intéressent Orange, qui pourrait par exemple recalibrer et distribuer une partie des formats proposés par le groupe audiovisuel pour les smartphones. L’opérateur regarde d’ailleurs de près un autre dossier: la société de production Banijay Group détenue à hauteur de 26% par…Vivendi. Pas question pour l’instant de parler de "convergence" chez Orange, qui avait arrêté en 2012 sa chaîne sport après y avoir englouti 1,6 milliard d’euros. Mais la stratégie décomplexée du concurrent SFR (Altice), qui s’est notamment payé les droits du football anglais, pourrait faire bouger les lignes. Devant quelques journalistes, le 21 juin à New York, Patrick Drahi, l’actionnaire de SFR a d’ailleurs raillé son concurrent: "Je vous parie que si je produis des séries, dans un an, Orange s’y met aussi." Une alliance avec Vivendi serait une alternative intéressante à cette perspective.
Orange n'a pas les mains libres
Quant à l’autre volet de l’opération, qui se solderait par une entrée d’Orange au capital de Telecom Italia, dont Vivendi est le principal actionnaire avec 24,9% du capital, elle correspond à une stratégie industrielle de déploiement international affichée par Stéphane Richard, qui ne cache guère son appétit pour l’Italie. Même s’il est finalement resté à l’écart de la bataille livrée par Iliad Free et Vivendi pour le contrôle de l’opérateur transalpin, le PDG d’Orange connaît parfaitement ce dossier et sait que la capitalisation de Telecom Italia s’est effondrée de plus de 30% depuis le début de l’année. Un proche de Stéphane Richard, tout en considérant qu’une entrée au tour de table de l’italien serait un "investissement évident", dément le fait que cette initiative puisse être liée à une alliance avec Vivendi et à fortiori à une entrée au capital de Canal Plus. Le message est clair: les deux volets du deal sont disjoints. Ce qui rend l’opération un peu plus digeste.
Car Orange n’a pas les mains libres, surtout lorsqu’il s’agit de choisir un partenaire. L’ex-France Telecom n’est pas un opérateur comme les autres du fait de la présence de l’Etat à son capital. Ce dernier est minoritaire (13,4% en direct et 9,6% via Bpifrance), mais suffisamment présent pour détenir une forme de droit de veto, comme l’a montré l’échec de l’alliance avec Bouygues sur laquelle avait travaillé pendant des mois Stéphane Richard et son ami Jean-Marie Messier. Alors que le gouvernement avait mis des conditions inacceptables à Martin Bouygues, imagine-t-on qu’il puisse mieux traiter Vincent Bolloré qualifié entre autres de "catho intégriste" et de "pirate" par le président de la République dans un récent livre de confessions? C’est pourquoi les acteurs de ce projet d’alliance redoublent de prudence: Bercy n’est pour l’instant pas dans la boucle, les opérations Telecom Italia et Canal sont "étanches" et Messier Maris, la boutique de fusion et acquisitions de l’ex-patron de Vivendi Universal, n’a aucun mandat formel. Cette période de stricte confidentialité est désormais révolue.

FT : US says Brussels’ tax probe of Apple is power grab ($19b)

US says Brussels’ tax probe of Apple is power grab

The US is unleashing a biting attack on the European Commission in a last ditch bid to dissuade Brussels from hitting Apple with a demand for billions of euros in underpaid taxes.
In a sharp escalation of their transatlantic feud, the US Treasury department will take a rare step on Wednesday of warning that Brussels is becoming a “supranational tax authority” that threatens international agreements on tax reform, the Financial Times has learnt.

The criticism comes as the European Commission finalises a probe into an alleged sweetheart tax deal that Ireland gave to Apple, the biggest single case in a crackdown on corporate tax avoidance across the EU. After prolonged delays, a definitive ruling is expected next month.
The Obama administration is stepping up its assault on the probe having failed to deter Brussels earlier this year by arguing publicly that it was setting unfair and “disturbing” precedents and singling out US companies.
In a white paper commissioned by Treasury secretary Jack Lew and seen by the FT, the US touches on sensitivities over Brussels’ accountability by suggesting that the novel legal approach of the directorate leading the probe amounts to a power grab.
“This shift in approach appears to expand the role of the [competition directorate] beyond enforcement of competition and state aid law . . . into that of a supranational tax authority that reviews member state” decisions on corporate tax, it says.
The Obama administration has said little about potential retaliation, but the white paper says “the US Treasury department continues to consider potential responses should the commission continue its present course”.
Earlier this year the Senate finance committee urged Mr Lew to consider imposing a double tax rate on European companies if the commission directed Apple to pay back-taxes in Ireland.

Margrethe Vestager, EU competition commissioner, has already directed the Netherlands to recover €20m to €30m in back taxes from Starbucks. Luxembourg must recover a similar amount from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and investigations continue into the retailer Amazon.
But the Apple case is much larger, as the underpaid tax could run to billions of euros if the commission rules against Ireland. JPMorgan, investment banker to Apple, has said the company could be on the hook for $19bn in a worst-case scenario.
The Treasury department says the “commission’s pursuit of retroactive recoveries is not only in tension with the G20’s efforts to emphasise tax certainty, but also sets an undesirable precedent that could lead to other tax authorities . . . [seeking] large and punitive retroactive recoveries from both US and EU companies”.
The Irish authorities and Apple are bracing for an adverse ruling, which they would challenge in the European courts. Each has denied that tax rulings issued by Dublin conferred a selective advantage to Apple.
Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, has insisted that the company complied fully with tax law and did not do anything wrong. This month he told the Washington Post that if Apple did not get a “fair hearing” in Brussels “then we would obviously appeal it”.
The Apple probe, which began in mid-2013, centres on "transfer pricing”, a practice by which companies move profits to low-tax jurisdictions through internal transactions.
The OECD club of rich countries has developed its own guidelines on aggressive transfer-pricing arrangements, and Treasury says the commission’s approach conflicts with them.
“In contrast to the OECD [guidelines], no country will have played a role in developing the commission’s guidance, which also would not be incorporated into bilateral tax treaties between the United States and [EU] member states,” the Treasury paper says.
It notes that the tax authorities in the US and EU member states have “entire departments whose sole responsibility is to examine transfer pricing issues”, while pointedly referring to the commission as a “non-tax agency”.
By taking the side of American companies, Mr Lew has drawn criticism from US anti-avoidance campaigners who say he should be standing up to businesses trying to escape US taxes.
The US’s earlier lobbying efforts included trips to Brussels by Robert Stack, the Treasury official in charge of international tax policy, and a public letter in February from Mr Lew to Jean-Claude Juncker, the commission president.

FT : Apple chief Tim Cook’s five years in five charts

Apple chief Tim Cook’s five years in five charts


Since succeeding Steve Jobs, Mr Cook has maintained growth but left investors wanting more

Tim Cook was left with one of the hardest acts to follow in the history of business when he succeeded Steve Jobs as Apple‘s chief executive in August 2011.
Just six weeks after Mr Cook’s appointment, Mr Jobs succumbed to pancreatic cancer, with many fearing Apple would go into decline — the vision and genius that had inspired the company’s revival dying with him.
“I know this sounds probably bizarre at this point,” Mr Cook told the Washington Post earlier this month, “but I had convinced myself that he would bounce.”
Instead, in the five years since, Mr Cook has slowly had to define his own Apple. It has become a company in some ways more open and approachable, even as its valuation surged, at one point, to new all-time highs for any company in the world.
“I think you could make the argument that Tim Cook was the perfect man for the job at the point he took over,” says Ben Wood of CCS Insight. “The company went from a small player in a massive market [of mobile phones] to a massive player. That required a very different skill set to an entrepreneurial visionary.”
Yet despite reporting the most profitable quarter ever in January last year thanks to the huge success of the iPhone 6, some critics continue to challenge whether Mr Cook can ever deliver the same kind of technological breakthroughs as his predecessor. In 2012, he was forced to apologise for the bungled debut of Apple Maps, something he now admits was “clearly a screw-up”.
In 2014, he unveiled a range of new products including the Apple Watch and Apple Pay, but the company is still more dependent on the iPhone for revenue growth and profits. As the easier growth phase of the smartphone market comes to an end, Apple has been forced to rethink the iPhone line-up to unlock new sources of growth, first with the underwhelming plastic 5C and then with the more successful SE earlier this year. In the meantime, Apple’s customer base has swelled from a couple of hundred million to perhaps more than 600m people.
“Cook gets a hard time for not being Steve Jobs, but Apple’s success is grounded in some of those mundane requirements that a lot of the companies fail at,” Mr Wood says, from manufacturing and quality control to diplomacy when dealing with governments such as the US and China. “On balance, Apple has consistently delivered really reliable products.”
Here is a look at Mr Cook’s first five years through five key metrics:
1. The success of the iPhone

Soon after selling the billionth iPhone last month, Tim Cook described the smartphone category’s growth as limited only by the number of people on the planet in range of a cellular tower.
“Over time, I’m convinced every person in the world will have a smartphone,” he said in a Washington Post interview. “That may take a while, and they won’t all have iPhones. But it is the greatest market on earth from a consumer electronics point of view.”
That thesis underpins Mr Cook’s confidence that whatever the cyclical gyrations of the market, the iPhone can continue to grow for many years to come. Just getting this far is a huge logistical accomplishment, analysts say. “Scaling up hundreds of millions of units in a relatively small space of time is a remarkable achievement,” says Ben Wood of CCS Insight.
However, the iPhone’s huge success also makes it difficult for any other Apple product to stand out. “For any other consumer electronics company, the Apple Watch would be a success beyond their wildest dreams,” Mr Wood says. “Juxtaposed against the iPhone it looks like a disappointment . . . It’s not necessarily the stellar product that everyone hoped it would be.”
2. Dealing with a pile of cash
One of the first clear departures Mr Cook made from his cash-hoarding predecessor came in March 2012, when Apple announced that it would pay shareholders a dividend for the first time in 17 years, alongside a $10bn share buyback scheme. At the time, it had $121bn in cash, a figure that has since swelled to $232bn. Because 93 per cent of that cash is held offshore, Apple has taken on a total of $85bn in debt in the US and elsewhere to fund its payouts.

During the same period, regulators have taken aim at that offshore cash pile in one form or another. In 2013, Mr Cook was forced to defend Apple’s tax practices before the US Senate, after an investigation accused the company of using legal loopholes and subsidiaries in Ireland to minimise its payments. “We don’t depend on tax gimmicks,” he told senators. But the issue has not gone away: Apple is still awaiting a final ruling from the European Commission after it accused the Irish government of giving Apple illegal tax breaks.
Such accusations are “total political crap”, Mr Cook told 60 Minutes last December, blaming an outdated US tax code for the issues. “Apple pays every tax dollar we owe.”
3. Growing the workforce and expanding beyond Infinite Loop
The number of people working at Apple, in its Cupertino campus and in its retail stores around the world, has almost doubled in the past five years. While most of its secretive research and development work is still done in and around headquarters at One Infinite Loop, it has expanded further afield under Mr Cook’s watch, including in Cambridge, England and Israel, as well as planned facilities in India and China.
While some observers have questioned Mr Cook’s ability to match his predecessor in product and design leadership, he has rallied staff behind him by taking a strong position on civil rights issues and by standing up to the US government over privacy. “Steve was the big thinker, the great communicator, and the founder,” says Ben Bajarin, analyst at Creative Strategies. “Tim is developing his own way of inspiring his troops, by caring about human rights and being green.”
However, Apple’s swelling ranks — and ever-growing supply chain — makes it increasingly difficult to keep details of forthcoming products secret. “We can do very few things without it being reported somewhere,” he told the Washington Post.
4. Boosting the share price
Mr Cook this Wednesday marks half a decade in the top job at Apple, at a time when many on Wall Street see little to celebrate. Apple’s market capitalisation has doubled in the past five years, overtaking ExxonMobil to become the world’s most valuable company and, for the most part, maintaining that position despite a huge surge in Alphabet’s stock price last year.

Nonetheless, Apple has come under pressure over the past 12 months as iPhone growth went into reverse for the first time.
Even though his communication with shareholders has been much more transparent and forthright than Jobs’, Mr Cook’s relationship with investors has not always been smooth. He has clashed with activists Carl Icahn and David Einhorn, who pressed for increased returns to shareholders. Yet his strategy recently won an endorsement from Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which increased its stake as the stock price has rallied over the past few months.
Apple analyst Horace Dediu notes the company has always earned a far lower price-to-earnings ratio than other Silicon Valley companies such as Facebook, Alphabet and Amazon. “It’s priced like a steel company going out of business,” he says.
“Apple is a global empire, much bigger [five years on] in terms of sales, headcount and customers. In some ways that means they may have lost that sharpness of innovation but at the same time this is not a bad place to be.”
Tim Bajarin of the Creative Strategies consultancy says Mr Cook does not worry too much about pleasing shareholders from one quarter to the next. “Tim’s mantra has always been, ‘If we make the best products, the stock will be fine’.”
5. Selling services to more customers
Mr Dediu argues that Wall Street is looking at Apple all wrong. Instead of being another hits-driven consumer electronics company that could go the way of Nokia or BlackBerry, he views it as a luxury brand with recurring revenues from a growing base of loyal customers.
Mr Cook tried to convince investors of this view earlier this year when he put a spotlight on Apple’s services business. He revealed that Apple now has more than 1bn unique devices in active use — a metric closer to the “monthly active user” figure by which internet companies are often judged.
Apple customers together spend enough on apps, music and mobile payments to generate revenues approaching the size of a Fortune 100 company. Mr Dediu estimates that, including hardware and software, Apple customers spend around $1 a day. “Apple will at some point in time have a billion paying customers,” he predicts. “A billion dollars a day from a billion customers is not inconceivable.”

>>> US Gapping down

Gapping down
In reaction to disappointing earnings/guidance:
  • EXPR -20.5%, LZB -15.1%, SOL -15%, INTU -5.1%, DY -3.9%
M&A news:
  • SKUL -1.9% (terminates merger with Incipio, enters new agreement to be acquired by Mill Road Capital for $6.35/share in cash, or ~$196.6 mln)
Select metals/mining stocks trading lower: SBGL -1.7%, AUY -1.6%, IAG -1.4%, NEM -1.4%, FCX -1.4%, SLW -1.3%, ABX -1.2%, GG -1.1%, X -1.0%
Other news:
  • AMDA -5.2% (modestly pulling back following yesterday's strength)
  • URBN -2.5% (in sympathy with EXPR results)
  • AMSC -0.9% (light volume, discloses negative court ruling)

Analyst comments:
  • NEWM -2% (downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup)
  • CSIQ -2.7% (downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays)

(Handelszeitung) Novartis is driving sales of Roche's participation ahead

Novartis is driving sales of Roche's participation ahead


Novartis is serious about selling its Roche shares. Big investors were invited to make an offer. Investors expect that the sale can be completed at any time.

The in spring became known sales of Roche's participation by Novartis is prepared. According to research by the "commercial paper" have been invited in the past few months, make an offer for the purchase of Roche shares large investors. In investor circles, it is believed that the sale can be initiated and completed in a few weeks at any time.

The sale of more than 13 billion francs serious position via a book forming method. It bids on desired volumes and prices to be obtained by investors. Then it comes to the allocation of shares.

Heavy rain million dividend

An accelerated book-forming method is not an option due to the size of the package. An investment banker estimates the liquidity in Roche securities to one billion francs - a fraction of what brings the package on the scale.

When the sale is completed, is unclear. In investor circles, it is believed that it is triggered when an alternative investment opportunity exists. The bar is high. The Roche-shareholding led Novartis last year $ 429 million in dividends, a, in the previous year it had been $ 473 million. That would upload a possible new acquisition only again.

Higher debt possible

At the same time, Novartis is apparently willing to temporarily accept a higher debt in purchase, a larger acquisition opportunity should arise. The company had expressed to the effect in recent weeks, it is stated in the investment community. Novartis is currently in debt of 22 billion dollars. The company has an AA rating.

Novartis confirms the information on request, but notes that it was "purely hypothetical" and does not refer & A projects in a specific M. The M & A strategy remains unchanged. Novartis will continue to draw acquisitions in the order 2-5 billion dollars whereas "to strengthen the innovation in our leading business units," as the press office writes.

>>> US Gapping up

Gapping up
In reaction to strong earnings/guidance: LCI +14.6%, NMBL +10.7%, LTRX +8.6%, GOGL +2%

M&A news: LEI +19.3% (shareholders vote to approve Segundo transaction and related financings)

Select financial related names showing strength: LYG +3.2%, BCS +2.2%, DB +2.1%, BBVA +2%, SAN +1.9%, HSBC+1.1%

Other news:
  • URRE +56.8% (develops energy metals business and acquires its first lithium property in Nevada)
  • AEHR +22.8% (announces a development/manufacturing partnership including an investment by Semics in 200K shares of Aehr Test Systems common stock)
  • INSY +12.2% (reports that the Phase 3 trial for the Buprenorphine Sublingual Spray met its primary endpoint)
  • OSUR +8.6% (receives a contract for up to $16.6 million in total funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to advance the Company's rapid Zika tests)
  • CLVS +7.9% (continued strength after yesterday's FDA approval of NDA for Rucaparib)
  • RADA +6.2% (cont strength)
  • WNC +6.2% (will replace EnerSys in the S&P SmallCap 600)
  • SCYX +5.6% (granted orphan designation by the FDA for its (1,3)-ß-D-glucan synthesis inhibitor for the treatment of invasive Aspergillus infections)
  • FIT +2.7% (continued strength after yesterday's FDA approval of NDA for Rucaparib)
  • FLO +1.8% (Directors (2) disclosed purchase of 24000 shares, worth total of $365.3K)
  • AAN +1.1% (light volume, Director disclosed purchase of 40K shares, worth total of ~$1.01 mln)
  • GPRO +1.1% (cont strength on the back of BBY earnings call yesterday)
  • VRX +1% (cont strength)
  • MOMO +1% (cont strength)
Analyst comments:
  • NEWM -2% (downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup)
  • CSIQ -2.7% (downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays)

>>> Rank CEO comments seen as indication of interest in tie-up with 888 - repor

Rank CEO comments seen as indication of interest in tie-up with 888

Rank Group [LON:RNK] chief executive Henry Birch yesterday, 23 August said the rationale behind the UK-based gambling company’s proposed three-way merger with 888 Holdings [LON:888] and William Hill [LON:WMH] would apply to a deal involving only Rank and 888, The Times reported. The CEO said that while he would be constrained from commenting on a tie-up between Rank and 888, the same strategic logic would apply to such a deal.

The article noted speculation that Rank and the Gibraltar-based online gambling company 888 might pursue a merger now that William Hill, a UK-based bookmaker, has decisively rejected the joint takeover offer of GBP 3.4bn (EUR 3.95bn) from Rank and 888. Rank and 888 announced on 18 August that they no longer intend to make a formal offer for William HIll.

Birch said the rationale behind the proposed three-way merger had been to respond to a recent wave of consolidation in the UK gambling sector; to cross-sell products to a larger customer base; to gain scale; and to create a new type of gambling company.

Rank reported a pre-tax profit of GBP 77m on GBP 753m revenues in the FY to 30 June yesterday, the article noted.

Rank Group’s market capitalisation stood at GBP 850m at the close of trading in London yesterday, while 888 Holdings was valued at GBP 780m.