Is Activision-Blizzard up for sale: Who is Vivendi?

Vivendi is rumored to be shopping around for buyers for its stake in Activision-Blizzard.

Never heard of Vivendi, the majority owner of Activision-Blizzard?

That’s not unusual. Many multinational corporations (MNC) may not be familiar to you, but their holdings and products probably are.

Vivendi SA* is a French-based MNC with principal holdings in the entertainment and telecommunications. Some of its holdings include:

Activision-Blizzard is a world leader in gaming. It’s titles include: Call of Duty, Diablo III, StarCraft II and the World of Warcraft – the world’s most successful MMO.

According to Vivendi’s site, they own 61% of Activision-Blizzard’s shares. A slight difference from what was reported by Reuters as 60%.

 

The Universal Music Group is a world leader in music publishing. It has published albums by such artists as Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Lil Wayne and Justin Bieber, plus it is partnered with American Idol to bring fresh talent to market.

 

 

Canal+ is the largest pay TV service in France, but it’s services are international. Canal+ boosts 12.9 million subscribers.

Canal+ Group is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Vivendi.

 

 

In particular, Vevendi is invested heavily in telecom:

The largest wireless/broadband provider in France with 21.5 million mobile subscribers and 5 million household broadband subscribers.

SFR is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Vivendi.

 

 

One of Morocco’s leading providers of telecom, wireless and broadband. It has close to 29 million customers in Morocco and other countries.

Vivendi own 53% of Maroc Telecom.

 

 

Brazil’s leading provider of telecom services, offering such services as traditional telephony, broadband, subscription TV, VoIP.

Vivendi owns 100% of GVT.

 

 

You don’t have to look too hard at this list to see gaming isn’t exactly Vivendi’s field of expertise. For that matter, neither is UMG. Wonder if they’re looking to unload that, too.

More on Vivendi and the Activision-Blizzard rumored sale as the week goes on.

 

*SA stands for Société anonyme, which means Vivendi is a publicly traded company in France.