Bolloré, soon to be the sole master on board Lagardère

Audio 02:20

File photo taken on May 3, 2013 shows Arnaud Lagardère, then CEO of French media group Lagardère.

AFP - ERIC PIERMONT

By: Amaury de Rochegonde Follow

5 mins

The Vivendi group, controlled by Vincent Bolloré, is in the process of taking full control of the Lagardère group through a takeover bid.

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We must reread this interview with Arnaud Lagardère, published two weeks ago in one of his media, the

Sunday Journal

.

"

We have gone into conquest mode 

", declared the boss there while Vivendi, the group controlled by Bolloré, had 27% of the capital of his empire and three directors.

Admittedly, Arnaud Lagardère had renounced before the summer his limited partnership status which protected him from a raid on his group, but after all, he had preserved the essential by keeping 14% of the capital and also three directors, including his friend Nicolas Sarkozy who kindly invited him to get closer to Bolloré.

Better, a kind of "peace of the brave" provided that he would remain CEO of his group for five years.

What could be better ?

Bolloré on the lookout carries the final blow to the Lagardère group

Only here, the promises only engage those who believe in them, because it is already clear that Arnaud Lagardère no longer has control over the development of his group.

To the question "

Will the Amber activist fund remain a shareholder?"

  ", The man answered in the

JDD

:" 

Yes, in any case I wish it

 ".

However, we learned on Wednesday, ten days after the interview, that Amber was selling its shares to Vivendi, which would be able to rise to 45% of Lagardère's capital and therefore launch a takeover bid to acquire all the shares available on the stock market.

We already knew Bolloré in the maneuver to bring CNews closer to Europe 1 through joint programs.

There, he is on the verge of being the sole master on board, especially as Bernard Arnault has withdrawn from the controlling holding company of Arnaud Lagardère.

The end of an industrial empire in decline since the death of its founder

Thus the 60-year-old boss-heir will definitively lose the orders of his group, passed on to his father's death in 2003. His dilettantism was a godsend for the great Breton beast whose Vivendi group has just swallowed. publisher of Prisma magazines. If it obtains the agreement of the CSA, responsible for ensuring the pluralism of audiovisual programs, it will be able to merge Europe 1 with the Canal + group while

Paris Match

and the

Sunday Journal

could join Prisma.

The books branch, a real nugget of the Lagardère group with Hachette, could be compared to the other major publisher, Editis, owned by Vivendi.

But here, it will require the agreement of the Competition Authority, which risks looking closely at the dominant position acquired on the French market, which may require publishing houses to be resold.

Regardless, Bolloré has a war chest to carry out other acquisitions in the media, as Vivendi is preparing to sell its shares in Universal Music for nearly 20 billion euros on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.

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