30/09/2002

The instalments that make up the Vivendi Universal saga are closely linked to the story of its founder Jean-Marie Messier.
In 1996, at the age of 40, this upper-level civil servant is put in charge of the powerful water company, Compagnie Générale des Eaux (CGE). Messier soon reorganises the group around environmental (water, energy, waste disposal and public transport) and communications sectors, as part of the ascent of its mobile phone subsidiary Cegetel.
Seduced by the potential of the multimedia sector and encouraged by a wave of economic expansion in Europe, Messier launched CGE, renamed Vivendi in 1998, by means of a series of acquisitions that received a lot of media attention thanks to slogans like “We have the channels, lets buy the content”. The French publishing and communications group Havas was the first to be absorbed, followed by one of America’s leaders in the educational and video games software sector, then Vivendi joined forces with Vodaphone to create an Internet portal called Vizzavi.
But the climax came in 2000 with the creation of Vivendi Universal, the result of a merger with Canal+ (Europe’s premiere pay-TV group, also digital, and a major player on the audiovisual production sector) and Canada’s Seagram (the global media group, and a strong presence in the film and music industries). News of the deal made headlines around the world and turned film industry operators’ world on its head because this was the first time that a European company set foot in a great Hollywood studio like Universal.
In France, the anxiety becomes almost tangible because Canal+ plays a decisive role in funding film production. By law, Canal Plus is obliged to commit 20 per cent of its revenue to the acquisition of films (almost half of which must be French). Furthermore, Canal+ also invests directly in film production by virtue of its subsidiary, StudioCanal which created an awesome catalogue (5000 films and 6000 hours of television drama) and diversified into distribution when it bought Tobis in Germany and StudioCanal Spain, and Bac Films and its subsidiary Mars Films in France. Nevertheless Jean-Marie Messier reassured operators as to Canal+’s independence with respect to the Americans at Universal Studios, and signed an extension to the contracts that bind Canal + and French cinema to 2004.
In September 2000, Vivendi Universal’s arrival on Wall Street was a triumph, and the group, lead by its captain of industry, does not suspect that all this success conceals a dark abyss.

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