By Mathieu Rosemain and Diana Mandia
(Reuters) - French media group Vivendi (EPA:VIV) hit antitrust hurdles in its quest to take over media group Lagardere, its chief executive said on Wednesday, as the company has a week to convince the European Commission over its proposed remedies.
Hachette, the world's third-biggest publishing group, currently owned by Lagardere, is key to the planned tie-up. The prospect of seeing Hachette merged with Vivendi's publishing division Editis triggered criticism from independent publishers and the loss of some well-known authors from Editis.
Vivendi, controlled by billionaire Vincent Bollore, has formally received a statement of objections from the European Union's antitrust authorities, CEO Arnaud de Puyfontaine told reporters in call.
The document includes a long list of queries and comes after remedies already proposed by Vivendi - in particular the spin-off and simultaneous distribution of Editis' shares to Vivendi shareholders and its listing on the Paris stock exchange.
"We are continuing our constructive discussions with the European Commission on the remedies that could be proposed," de Puyfontaine said. "In parallel, we are continuing discussions with potential buyers of Editis with a view to filing remedy proposals around mid-March."
Bollore is Vivendi's controlling shareholder with a 29% stake, meaning he would receive a large chunk of Editis' shares through the spin-off and share distribution. Vivendi said Bollore would sell his stake in Editis.
De Puyfontaine said the group had received "three serious offers" for a controlling stake in Editis, which would include Bollore's holdings.
One of these is a joint bid by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky and French businessmen Stephane Courbit and Pierre-Edouard Sterin for about 37% of Editis, two sources familiar with the matter said.
The two others are those of Canadian group Quebecor and media group Reworld, the Financial Times has reported.
Seventy-year-old Bollore will leave the company's board as non-voting member, Vivendi also said, in a further sign that the tycoon is fully retiring from his activities. His son Yannick already chairs the board and leads Vivendi's Havas advertising unit.
Separately, Vivendi reported an annual loss attributable to shareholders of 1.01 billion euros ($1.07 billion), mainly due to the deconsolidation of Telecom Italia (BIT:TLIT), after a profit of 24.69 billion euros in 2021.
The Paris-based company said a fair value adjustment of the Telecom Italia shares led to a loss on deconsolidation of 1.35 billion euros in 2022.
Vivendi also took a 300 million-euro write down on Editis.
Vivendi's adjusted full year net income was up 19.4% from 2021 to 677 million euros excluding the effect of Telecom Italia's deconsolidation.
Group's revenues were up 5.1% on a comparable basis to 9.6 billion euros.
($1 = 0.9481 euros)