Vivendi Earnings Rise

PARIS—Vivendi SA on Wednesday reported a rise in second-quarter net profit, boosted by a windfall from the sale of its Brazilian telecom unit GVT to Telefó nica SA.

Vivendi, which in recent years has substantially slimmed down from a telecommunications to broadcasting conglomerate to a company with activities mainly in pay TV and music recording, said net profit rose to €1.96 billion, compared with €1.48 billion a year earlier. Sales increased in both of its key divisions.

The company has in recent years sold an array of assets from telecoms to videogames and is now seeking to rebuild itself into a large European media company under the chairmanship of its largest individual shareholder, Vincent Bolloré .

Revenue at the group rose 9% to €2.6 billion.

The group's Universal Music Group posted sales that were up 19% to €1.21 billion in the second quarter from a year earlier, benefiting from the growth of all its businesses.

French pay-TV group Canal Plus increased revenue by 1% to €1.36 billion, with a strong performance from the group outside France compensating for falling revenue from French pay-TV.

Mr. Bolloré has pledged to make Vivendi's units work more closely together and is expected to announce changes to Canal Plus's top management team Thursday morning following a meeting with the pay-TV group's top executives, according to people familiar with the matter.

The company has a roughly €9 billion cash pile from asset sales leading to questions from analysts and investors about what the company would do with the money. Having sold its telecoms assets in recent years, the company bought stakes in Telecom Italia and Telefó nica this year, raising further questions about its strategy.

Vivendi also confirmed it increased its interest in Dailymotion by an additional 10%, and now holds 90% of the video streaming website's share capital.

Write to Nick Kostov at [e-mail]

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September 02, 2015 13:05 ET (17:05 GMT)

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