Media conglomerate Lagardère plans to list its 20-per-cent stake in French pay-television broadcaster Canal Plus by June, according to the Financial Times.
Lagardère values the stake at €1.2 billion ($1.5 billion), but the newspaper said that the estimated value may need to be reduced to €800 million to ensure a successful flotation.
Lagardère announced the plan after reporting its third-quarter financial figures for the three months to September 30. Lagardère’s net sales in the quarter were flat year-on-year at €1.96 billion.
The company’s sports marketing division, Lagardère Unlimited, reported net sales of €320 million for the year to the end of September, down by 4.5 per cent on a like-for-like basis. The division’s sales during the quarter of €107 million represented a fall of 3.2 per cent year-on-year.
Lagardère said that the Sportfive agency, part of the Lagardère Unlimited division, had an 8.4-per-cent increase in net sales due to media and marketing activities around qualifying matches for the 2014 Fifa World Cup.
“These positive trends were offset by a lag in sports events in Asia… as well as difficult conditions in the US, which had a negative impact on attendance and sponsorship revenues,” the company said.
In a conference call with analysts, Arnaud Lagardère, the company’s general and managing partner, said that the sports division, Lagardère Unlimited, was gradually moving away from big sports media-rights acquisitions – which he described as “extremely risky” – towards a focus on athlete representation and event ownership.
When pressed by analysts for details about how the company would be restructured and geared down in the wake of the Sportfive agency missing out on the Uefa Qualifiers contract, which was won by the CAA Eleven agency, Arnaud Lagardère said that the company’s chief financial officer, Laurent Carozzi, was currently drawing up a budget for 2013 in line with the reduced spending on rights, and told analysts: “Don’t be afraid on this.”