Vivendi Offloads BSkyB Shares

Vivendi Universal yesterday sold a third of its stake in BSkyB, leaving it with a 15% share in the company. It is thought that the money raised from the sale, around £1bn, will be used to fund further acquisitions by the company.

Thanks to Vivendi’s decision not to offload all its interests in BSkyB at once, thereby putting a glut of shares on the market, the ill-effect on the satellite broadcaster’s shares yesterday was limited. Shares ended down 53½p at £7.46, a loss of 6.69%. By 10.15am today there were signs of a recovery, and the price of shares had climbed 7p to £7.53.

Third quarter results for BSkyB were released at the start of November (see Sky Reports Revenue Increases). They revealed that revenue had seen a 24% increase and that losses had decreased. Sky’s digital service remains the market leader, with 4.5m subscribers, compared to ITV Digital’s 1.2m.

BSkyB: 020 7705 3000 www.sky.com ITV Digital: 0808 100 0101 www.itv-digital.co.uk

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