Here is who will hold Vivendi of Bolloré on Tim
Kkr's move in Tim against Vivendi. The words of Letta (Pd) anti Bolloré. Iliad's potential role. And Bolloré's role in France between media and politics. The in-depth study by Enrico Martial
If a “containement” operation were underway against Vincent Bolloré, the analyzes on Tim should also take this into account, in addition to the economic, financial and industrial aspects. The signs are there, even if the picture is not entirely clear.
The narrative says that Bolloré intends to build a media and telecommunications group in southern Europe. According to Le Monde , Emmanuel Macron would instead have addressed the owner of Vivendi with a "but well, enough, you buy everything!". And in this expression there is not only a financial issue, but also a political one.
For example, the latest news concerns his offer to even acquire Le Figaro , owned by the Dassault family, who kindly rejected it (group of around 11 billion in turnover, family assets of 23.8 billion in 2018).
Bolloré always finds fierce competitors
As if by magic, Bernard Arnault, owner of Le Parisien-Les Echos , had also made a parallel offer (assets in assets of 164 billion, the LVHM group has a turnover of approximately 44.6 billion). As soon as Bolloré moves, there is someone big and big who acts, with a parade of fencing, of containment. The acquisition of the second private media group in France, M6, was also acquired in this way by the German Bertelsmann. Vivendi-Bolloré had come forward, but then the private flagship TF1 of the Bouygues group (turnover 34.7 billion in 2020) grabbed it. Nicolas Sarkozy even said that President Emmanuel Macron would intervene with Angela Merkel to prevent her from moving to Bolloré.
Also in Spain and Italy
And then there is abroad, Spain and Italy. Vincent Bolloré, "todopoderoso y temido empresario francés" in recent weeks has been working in Spain to buy El País (the Prisa group), climbing up to 9.9% of the shares, with the desire to reach 29.9%, but facing Amber Capital, an activist fund that does not want to sell its 29.83%. Amber and Vivendi had already battled hard over the control of the Lagardère group ( Journal du Dimanche , Europe1 , Paris Match ) in which Bolloré had prevailed. In Italy then there was the Mediaset case, with a tough battle that reached the court.
Chapter Tim
And then Tim. Bolloré-Vivendi had conquered it in 2015 but the Elliot fund had ousted it in the assembly on 4 May 2019, only to find an armed calm, and Luigi Gubitosi CEO and general manager. As soon as the tension has risen with a new activism by Vivendi and new criticisms of the management, here comes the American fund KKR . There is no peace for the Breton "educated predator", Italy is not a long, calm river, as Les Echos evoked . In any case, in Italy, Spain, France, there is always a subject opposed to Vivendi-Bolloré, in bitter battles.
Bolloré promoter of the far right
It is not just a financial question, in which to contain a leader and casual entrepreneur. The political component must also be considered.
The old iTélé Bolloré turned into CNews became something of a French-style Fox News (says the New York Times ), and was the springboard for both polemicist Eric Zemmour and a wave of far-right arguments.
The one who edited Zemmour's books at Albin Michel, Lise Boëll, became none other than the director of Plon (with great cultural scandal), a publishing house that is part of the Editis group controlled by Bolloré, which also controls the legendary Hachette. Zemmour himself sees Vincent Bolloré at lunch every month, the two call each other continuously. Arnaud de Puyfontaine, president of Vivendi's directorate, according to Le Monde would have said that "we need to put more Zemmour" in the Xavier Bertrand campaign in the primaries of Les Républicains, that is, moving the contents even further to the right.
Indeed, those issues have received sympathy from various leaders, such as Eric Ciotti. In view of the primary on 4 December, several candidates supported the primacy of French national law over European law: even the hero of the Brexit negotiation, Michel Barnier, like a Polish sovereignist and leaving everyone stunned. Finally, there are the political choices in the expulsion of directors and journalists in Europe 1, and in other newspapers, as in the case of Hervé Gattegno from the guide of the Journal du Dimanche .
The containment of Zemmour and the political Bolloré
However, these days there is also a containment in this area. Eric Zemmour went his own way, with a more nationalist interpretation of De Gaulle that provoked several reactions, both rediscovering Marshal Pétain, with even stronger reactions. He found no one to welcome him on his visit to the United Kingdom on November 19, not even a known brexiteer or populist, nor rooms available in Switzerland, Geneva or other French cities: a " persona non grata ".
Marine Le Pen has invited Zemmour to join her camp. On November 30, the most important of the candidates in the primaries of Les Républicains on December 4, Xavier Bertrand said he was a " Republican candidate ", dumping Zemmour's sympathizers into his party. In French political language it means drawing a red line between him and Zemmour (and Marine Le Pen), repositioning Les Républicains at least in part on the old Chirac line.
In Italy, the music is the same: Enrico Letta, from the PD government, sided with KKR. Speaking not of politics but of TIM, he said that Bolloré "is not a financier like the others, but the main supporter of Eric Zemmour". Obviously Matteo Salvini said he was instead opposed to the KKR operation, to protect "national interests", although Bolloré the Frenchman is already on board.
Tim and Niel's weight with Iliad
TIM is not just an Italian national question, not even a European one. We are in the six months preceding the French presidential elections, even more delicate than our so-called white semester. The yellow vests have not yet disappeared from the radar, anger is still brewing in the country. There is a problem of destabilization across Europe, to the east at the borders of Belarus or in the occupied territories of Ukraine, or in Bulgaria or in the shaky Montenegrin government, but also in Mediterranean or Sahel Africa, between Turkey, China and Russia. The extreme and “non-republican” French right has already expressed pro-Russian sympathies.
For Mattieu Bailly , of Octo Asset Management, the Tim financial deal for Kkr is ultimately quite intricate, and he advises investors against placing money in it: squabbling shareholders, high debt, problems with network spin-off if the European Commission is not d agreement, uncertainty about the state golden share. Apparently easy to manage, only the Brazilian pieces remain.
But if there really isn't this big business but rather a big grain, then we note that the US fund Kkr, in addition to the financial dimension, has leading figures, including General David Paetreus (KKR partner and president of the KKR Global Institute), which may no longer have relations with the military security environment or the CIA that it headed at the time, but remains an Atlantic character.
Xavier Niel is also on the board of KKR since 1 March 2018 and as an independent. This other financier has upset the Italian furniture market with Iliad, with subscriptions at bargain prices, like his French Free. He has already tried to compete with Bollorè-Vivendi in the TIM shareholder base in 2015, but was forced to retire, leaving 200 million on the field. He is an opponent of Bolloré, he also fought during Bertelsmann's sale of M6, he holds enough shares in Le Monde to prevent it from being taken.
Now he could join Tim's game again, perhaps waiting for Kkr to leave the area to entrepreneurs in the sector in the next five years. According to BFM TV , Xavier Niel first goes through the mobile, and then tries to put his foot in the landline.
The words of a politician certainly in solid relations with France, such as the secretary of the Democratic Party, Enrico Letta, are also significant: "The concern for a Tim in the hands of foreigners – said Letta, as reported by the Agi agency – must be a all round. He is not a financier like the others, but the main supporter of Erich Zemmour, who has become a protagonist in French politics with a disturbing profile. In Vivendi, I wonder, how do they live with this conflict of interest? What does Bolloré want from Italy? He is more than a supporter of Zemmour: he has created a television whose main protagonist is him ”.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/chi-frena-vincent-bollore-su-tim/ on Wed, 01 Dec 2021 07:33:48 +0000.