Bertrand Meheut has been replaced as Canal+’s chairman after 13 years at the helm amid sweeping changes by billionaire Vincent Bolloré, who chairs its parent group Vivendi (EPA:VIV).
Bolloré recently upped his stake in Vivendi to about 14.5% to tighten his grip on the company and tackle Canal+’s falling subscriber numbers. The latest executive change came after he was appointed chairman of Canal+’s supervisory board, taking over that responsibility from Vivendi CEO Arnaud de Puyfontaine.
Meheut has been succeeded by Jean-Christophe Thiery, a key executive in Bolloré’s family holding company, although he will continue to advise the group.
Maxime Saad, who was promoted from Canal+’s head of pay-TV to its CEO earlier this year, is keeping his position.
Canal+ also announced that Julien Verley, CEO of the group’s Polish DTH firm nc+, is joining its management board.
Vivendi has built up a multibillion dollar warchest from selling off telecoms (French mobile operator SFR, Maroc Telecom and Brazilian cableco GVT) and video game assets, and Bolloré has hinted at transformational acquisitions to shake up the company.
In the meantime, Vivendi has opportunistically re-entered telecoms by building up a 14.9% stake in Telecom Italia. Some observers see that move as a purely activist effort, while others expect Bollore to use the telco as a springboard for content distribution in Italy.
In content, Vivendi in May acquired an 80% stake in video website Dailymotion from Orange, a deal viewed cynically by some as having been engineered by the French government to retain Francophone control. In March, Canal+ joined media holding ITI Group in selling a 52.7% stake in Polish pay-TV broadcaster TVN for US$1.5bn.
