Question Details

Who are stakeholders of Vivendi Universal




Case Scenario 3: Vivendi Universal SA.
Vivendi Universal is a French firm that started in 1853 as Companie General des Eaux. It grew from a French water utility company into one of the world- largest conglomerates. Under the corporate leadership of CEO Jean Marie Messier, Vivendi Universal became a highly diversified company involved in music, publishing, film, pay TV, telecoms, Internet, water distribution, thermal energy supply, building and heavy public construction projects, waste management, electrical energy services, real estate and other activities. Mr. Messier was forced out of the company in July, 2002, in a liquidity crisis and mounting shareholder anger. The acquisitions made by Mr. Messier saddled the company with billions of dollars of debts. Vivendi shares plummeted 80 percent during the last six months Mr. Messier was CEO, according to the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, the SEC indicated that a disputed severance payment of $23 million to Mr. Messier may actually constitute “ill gotten gains,” reported the Wall Street Journal. Vivendi Universal refused to make the payment saying the board and shareholders had never agreed to the severance payment. On the brink of bankruptcy, Vivendi Universal brought in Jean-Rene Fourtou to replace Mr. Messier as CEO. According to the business media, Mr. Fourtou has taken a dying enterprise and given it a survival plan. He sold numerous Vivendi Universal businesses, bringing the company to focus on Cegetel, a phone company; SFR, a cellphone company; Canal Plus, a television company; and Universal Music. Mr. Fourtou was able to reduce Vivendi- debt from 37 billion euros in 2002 to a projected 5 billion euros by the end of 2005. The company showed its first quarterly profit at the end of 2003, allowing Mr. Fourtou to arrange a loan from a banking consortium and give the company hopes that credit-rating agencies would raise its debt from junk-bond status, according to The New York Times. The company projects $2.2 billion in profits for 2005. According to Barrons, “Fourtou and the new chief executive Jean Bernard Levey have moved beyond restructuring and recapitalizing the firm to building core businesses.”

	1.	(Refer to Case Scenario 3) Who are stakeholders of Vivendi Universal, and what was the role of stakeholders in Vivendi Universal- recent history?


	2.	(Refer to Case Scenario 3) Who was ultimately responsible for the problems at Vivendi Universal?





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