Discussions between the shareholders of Lagardère on the future governance of the group are "in progress", we learned Sunday from one of the parties, while the French group is at the center of a battle to end the status of manager of Arnaud Lagardère, which makes him unbreakable.

According to the daily newspapers

Les Echos

,

Le Monde

and the weekly

Le Point

, the shareholders of the group, namely Arnaud Lagardère, Bernard Arnault (Groupe Arnault), Vincent Bolloré (Vivendi) and Joseph Oughourlian (Amber Capital), are about to reach an agreement, after several months of negotiations, to put an end to the limited partnership by shares (SCA) and its replacement by a more traditional governance under the status of a public limited company.

Supervisory Board

A supervisory board could meet on Monday, ahead of Lagardère's general meeting scheduled for June 14, to ratify a possible agreement.

Contacted by AFP, Lagardère declined to comment.

A bulwark against any shareholding takeover, the sponsorship makes its manager, Arnaud Largardère, unbreakable, even though he only holds 7% of the capital of his company.

According to the three media, at this stage of the negotiations, Arnaud Lagardère would have agreed to give up this protective status in exchange for a CEO position until 2026 and the equivalent of around 200 million euros in new shares. .

The Lagardère group is the subject of incessant rumors about a sale of its media division, and in particular the radio Europe 1 for which Vincent Bolloré does not hide his interest.

The Breton businessman is at the helm of Vivendi, which took a stake in Lagardère a year ago and has since become its first shareholder.

What future for the

JDD

and

Paris Match

 ?

In November, discussions had also taken place between the media giant, owner of Editis, and Lagardère about the sale of the international division of Hachette Livre.

But Vivendi's plans were thwarted by the surprise arrival of Bernard Arnault, who took 27% of Arnaud Lagardère's personal holding company and made a pact with him to act in concert.

The luxury emperor is known to be interested in the

JDD

and

Paris Match

newspapers

.

But the agreement envisaged, and as yet unconfirmed, would prevent any dismantling for five years.

Under the influence of the health crisis, the Lagardère group widened its loss in 2020, which reached 660 million euros.

The overall turnover collapsed by 38% over the year.

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