The Committee meeting began with a friendly chat with Cédric de Bailliencourt, member of the management Board, Vice-Chairman and Chief Financial Officer of Bolloré Group. Commenting the Group’s News, he reminded the group’s ambitious strategy to build a content, media, communications leader with Havas’ coming. Their expertise in consumer science, data analytics and new creative formats are today essential for an industry in full transformation where offers and convergence between content, distribution and communication are multiplying.
Cédric de Bailliencourt continued the exchange by clarifying the strategic interest of Vivendi’s stake in Telecom Italia, by commenting on the amount of the next dividend, and delivering its analysis on the evolution of the share price.
Review of the Group’s 2017 results and 2018 guidance
Solange Maulini, Director of Press and individual shareholders Information, presented the key figures of Vivendi for 2017, detailing their evolution in particular for UMG, the growth of subscription and streaming activities, and for Canal+, the improvement of subscriptions in France and the excellent performance recorded internationally.
She also provided details on the evolution of the Group’s debt and highlighted the increase in the dividend that will be submitted to shareholders at the General Meeting on April, 19 for approval. In response to certain questions from the Committee, she also confirmed the success of the Paddington franchise and explained Dailymotion’s differentiation strategy against YouTube.
Vivendi’s digital communication
Jean-Louis Erneux, Vice President Press Relations and New Media of Vivendi, exposed to the Committee the issues related to the diffusion of information on the web and the social networks for the Group.
Regarding Vivendi’s website, he recalled the evolutions, particularly visual and graphic, made in recent years, before commenting on the regulatory and technical constraints governing the creation of a website. Jean-Louis Erneux also clarified thoughts on the website’s search engine as well as exclusively digital documents such as the Societal and Environmental Report.
Return on the new letter to the shareholders and presentation of Vivendi Sports
Christine Pigeyre, Vivendi’s Director of External Relations, presented to the committee the mock-up of the new Shareholders’ Letter realized with Havas. The Committee has been able to express some proposals such as the inclusion of a QR code allowing access to specific information (nominative, shareholders’ club …).
Christine Pigeyre then presented Vivendi Sports, a Vivendi Village’s new entity that manages sports events. She detailed the organization set up for the Tour de l’Espoir 2018 in Cameroon, before presenting the results of this event and the outlook of the entity for this year.
Closing lunch
A lunch gathered the participants of this session in a warm atmosphere. The members of the Committee were able to continue their discussions.
