Publicis shares jump briefly on Vivendi tie-up rumour but ‘planets don’t seem aligned’

Bank of America said in a note to investors: “While this is not the first time that a tie-up between Publicis and Vivendi is speculated, we have no reason to believe that today’s article has any more basis than the previous press reports.”

The investment bank’s analysts cited a series of potential obstacles, including the Badinter family, which has about 10% of the voting rights in Publicis, and the stock market valuations of the two companies. Publicis is worth about $19.7bn — twice the value of Vivendi – although the family-controlled Bolloré Groupe has other assets.

A tie-up between Publicis, which employs close to 100,000 people, and Havas, which has upwards of 20,000, “could create some cost synergies but also lead to integration issues”, the analysts added, recalling how Publicis and Omnicom abandoned their planned merger in 2014.

Bank of America noted Bolloré had previously “shown an appetite for lowly rated under-performing assets where he can wield influence without acquiring full ownership”, including buying a stake in Aegis Group, before its subsequent sale to Dentsu in 2012. But Publicis, under the leadership of Arthur Sadoun, the chief executive, has been “largely outperforming its peers” since the pandemic.

There has been on-off industry chatter that Vivendi, the owner of media assets including Canal+ and Editis, has been eyeing Publicis, the world’s second biggest ad agency group by staff headcount behind WPP.

When speculation surfaced most recently in 2021, Vivendi dismissed suggestions of a future tie-up with Publicis and described it as “unfounded rumour”.