After Yahoo, Vivendi now offers to buy online video-sharing service Dailymotion
03 May 2013
French mass media company Vivendi has offered to buy France Telecom's Dailymotion, a few days after the country's industry minister torpedoed Yahoo's plan of buying a majority stake in the online video-sharing service, French news website Wansquar today reported.
Apart from Vivendi, a consortium comprising of Pierre Berge, co-founder of Yves Saint Laurent fashion house, Xavier Niel, founder and majority shareholder of the French internet service provider Iliad, Lazard banker Matthieu Pigasse, have also tabled a buyout offer for Dailymotion, the news website said.
In March, The Wall Street Journal had reported that Yahoo Inc is in talks with France Telecom to acquire a controlling 75 per cent stake in Dailymotion in a deal that could value the world's second largest video-sharing website at around $300 million. (See: Yahoo in talks to buy controlling stake in online video website Dailymotion: report)
Paris-based Dailymotion, owned by France Telecom, is the 12th-largest video website in the world by unique users, according to research firm comScore Inc.
The site, which like YouTube has user-uploaded videos, was part acquired by France Telecom in 2011, which later took full ownership this year, for a total of around $165 million.
Yahoo's month-long plan was torpedoed by Frence's controversial industry minister Arnaud Montebourg, who did not want one of France's most successful start-ups being "devoured" by Americans, and instead pushed for a 50-50 joint venture.
Montebourg, who had recently publicly rebuked steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal and Maurice Taylor, head of US tyre maker Titan, (See: After ArcelorMittal, French minister in war-of-words with head of US tyre maker Titan) is reported to have told France Télécom's CFO, Stéphane Richard, ''I won't let you sell one of France's best startups …… You don't know what you're doing.''
But French media immediately lashed out at Montebourg for interfering in a company transaction, while Richard said that the government had no say on the company's strategy.
''Dailymotion is a subsidiary of Orange and not the state. It is the company, its management and its board that manages this issue,'' Richard told Les Echos business newspaper.
