Cyrille Bolloré, the son of French media mogul Vincent Bolloré, today (July 28) resigned from his position on Universal Music Group‘s board with immediate effect.
Outside of his non-executive directorship on UMG’s board, Cyrille Bolloré serves as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of France’s Bolloré Group.
An investor update from UMG issued today said that Bolloré was standing down to “focus his time and energy on the Bolloré Group”.
It added: “Mr. Bolloré remains strongly supportive of UMG´s management team and strategy.”
It’s no great surprise that Bolloré Jr. and Sr. may be rather busy right now: France’s equivalent to the SEC – the AMF – ruled last week that the Bolloré Group has to make a public tender offer for Vivendi shares it doesn’t own in the next six months.
The move could potentially delist Vivendi from the public markets.
According to Bloomberg, even though Vincent Bolloré officially owns less than 30% of Vivendi, “A Paris court in April found that the French businessman effectively controls Vivendi through his Bolloré SE holding company and controls the decisions made at its shareholders’ meetings.”
The Bolloré Group announced today that it would be appealing the AMF’s decision.
Cyrille Bolloré’s departure from UMG’s board follows that of Bill Ackman, who resigned his non-exec position in May.
According to its website, The Bolloré Group owned an 18.5% stake in Universal Music Group at the close of 2024.
In addition, it held 29.3% of Vivendi, which, in turn, owned approximately 10% of UMG’s issued share capital, according to Universal’s latest annual report.
This implies that, via the Bolloré Group, Vincent Bolloré controls around 21.4% of Universal’s share capital.
An update from UMG in its annual report for 2024 showed that Vivendi SE had a capital interest of 14.59% in UMG as of December 10, 2024.
However, that same note confirmed that on December 10, 2024, Vivendi “notified a short position of 4.65% as a result of its entry into a forward sale”.
The annual report further confirmed that 4.65% of Vivendi’s 14.59% capital interest in UMG “represents a potential capital interest… as a result of its entry into an equity swap”.
Vivendi is the previous owner of Universal Music Group.
The music company was ‘spun out’ onto the Paris Euronext in 2021, with Vivendi maintaining a 10% ownership stake.
Other than Vincent Bolloré / The Bolloré Group, Universal Music Group’s biggest shareholder is a consortium led by China’s Tencent Music and Tencent Holdings (‘Concerto Partners’) which owns around 20% of UMG.Music Business Worldwide
