Vivendi says no pressure to sell as profit beats target

Entertainment-to-telecoms conglomerate Vivendi beat its full-year earnings target, helped by video game sales and a smaller-than-expected profit drop at its French mobile unit. The company, which is in the midst of a strategic review, said it would not give forecasts for the group for this year until it had more clarity on asset sales, adding that it was not in a hurry to push through disposals.
Vivendi is looking to sell assets including its 53-percent stake in Maroc Telecom and Brazilian subsidiary GVT as part of an overhaul aimed at cutting debt and reducing its exposure to the capital-intensive telecoms business.
Its domestic telecom unit, SFR, meanwhile, has been hammered by a price war launched by low-cost mobile player Iliad , and is cutting jobs and restructuring, although Vivendi repeated that SFR was not for sale. "We are not under pressure in our disposals processes," finance chief Philippe Capron said on a conference call. "If the prices are not good, we will take our time."
Les Echos newspaper reported that Vivendi had failed to obtain offers near its preferred price of 7 billion euros for GVT and was delaying the sale.
"We are closer to the end of the process than we have ever been," Capron said, adding: "We are not in a hurry to sell." Vivendi posted full-year adjusted net income of 2.86 billion euros ($3.78 billion) before one-offs, ahead of its target of 2.7 billion. Revenue rose 0.6 percent to 28.99 billion, compared with the average estimate in a Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S analyst poll of 28.51 billion.
SFR saw full-year earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fall 10.6 percent before one-offs to 3.3 billion euros, better than the group's target for a drop of close to 12 percent.
Vivendi forecast full-year EBITDA would fall further to close to 2.9 billion euros at SFR this year, with capital expenditure of about 1.6 billion. The company's Activision Blizzard video games maker posted increases of revenue and EBITA of 9.8 percent and 13.6 percent respectively last year as it launched new games such as Black Ops II.