Vivendi Spinoffs Face Decline

(Reuters) – The newly listed spinoffs of Vivendi have seen their shares decline in their first week of trading, after being listed on Monday in a move aimed at unwinding the conglomerate discount of tycoon Vincent Bollore's media empire.

Shares of London-listed Canal+ have slumped 33% since Monday, trading at 194 pence per share as of 1240 GMT on Friday, compared to their debut price of 290 pence.

Advertising agency Havas, listed in Amsterdam, saw a nearly 19% decline over the past five days, trading at 1.46 euros per share on Friday afternoon versus Monday's opening price of 1.80 euros.

Louis Hachette Group, the smallest of the three which debuted on Paris' junior and unregulated exchange Euronext Growth, has lost a chunk of its initial 18.3% gain from Monday to trade 8% above its debut price at 1.29 euros.

That gives Canal+ a market valuation of around 2.32 billion euros ($2.41 billion), with Havas at 1.45 billion euros and Louis Hachette at 1.28 billion euros.

Vivendi was trading at 2.45 euros by 1240 GMT on Friday. Prior to the high-stakes breakup, the Bollore family-controlled group had a market value of 8.3 billion euros.

Its post-split value, reflecting strategic stakes in publicly traded companies such as Telecom Italia and Universal Music Group and in unlisted video games firm Gameloft, stood at 2.43 billion euros.

The sum-of-the-parts valuation, which includes the spinoffs, has therefore contracted by nearly 10% to 7.5 billion euros.

Chairman of Vivendi's supervisory board, Yannick Bollore, had said in an interview with French daily Les Echos in October that all of Vivendi's assets were valued at around 16 billion euros in the group's accounts.

The Paris-listed holding company, which Euronext excluded from France's benchmark index CAC 40 on Wednesday, had pitched the breakup of its activities as the only effective way to reduce the estimated 40% conglomerate discount.

($1 = 0.9612 euros)