(BFM Stock Exchange) – The record company plunges on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, weighted by the sales of action by Pershing Square, funds of the famous investor Bill Ackman. Vivendi, whose participation in UMG is by far the most important asset, is under pressure on the Paris Stock Exchange.

Bill Ackman may not be as known as Warren Buffett. But the activist investor remains one of Wall Street’s most influential eggs. Director of the Pershing Square Capital Management fund, with a total of $ 16 billion in management, Bill Ackman has 1.6 million subscribers on X (ex-Twitter).

Forbes assesses his fortune to $ 9.1 billion and recalls that he was very active to ensure that the ex-president of Harvard, Claudine Gay, is dismissed from his functions after accusations of plagiarism and anti-Semitism. Long supporter of the Democratic camp, Ackman was committed to Donald Trump last year, despite “the faults and errors” of the American president.

Incidentally, Bill Ackman is also one of the largest shareholders of Universal Music Group (UMG), the famous record company. He had entered the capital in the summer of 2021, just before the IPO of Amsterdam of UMG by Vivendi.

Via Pershing Square, Ackman held, at the end of 2024, 7.48% of the capital of UMG, which represented around 3.7 billion euros.

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An unfavorable signal

The investor judged that the time had come to reduce the wing. In a message on X published Thursday, March 13, Ackman announced that it has decided to sell “a portion” of UMG shares to reduce the weight of the record company in its investment portfolio.

“UMG was our most important position with more than 27% of our capital. After the sale, it will remain our largest position with around 17% of the portfolio, ”said the financier. Ackman assures that the management team “had done an excellent job to develop the company”. “We think Aumg is one of the best companies we have ever possessed,” he says.

“At the end of last year, we exercised our registration fees so that UNIMG is listed on a large US scholarship during the year, which, we are convinced, will be extremely beneficial for the company,” recalls Ackman. The manager had obtained this right within the framework of the IPO of UMG, in 2021, and the company will thus join either the NASDAQ or the New York Stock Exchange this year as part of a double rating.

According to Bloomberg, Pershing Square has, more precisely, sold 2.7% of the capital of the record company of Taylor Swift for 1.3 billion euros at a price of 26.6 euros per title. This represents a discount of 5% compared to the closing course on Thursday evening.

On the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the UMG action plunges, losing 7.1% at 25.91 euros. The sale of titles by Bill Ackman “still sends a negative signal” on the evolution of the action, judges an analyst.

Vivendi UMG UMG UMG

A sign that in the scholarship the butterfly effects are not so rare, Vivendi, which still has 9.9% of UMG, lost 2.6% in Paris after falling by almost 6% in the first exchanges.

Let us recall that since the end of last December and the stock exchange of Canal+ (in London), Havas (in Amsterdam) and Louis Hachette Group (in Paris), Vivendi has become a portfolio company which only has 100%Gameloft.

Its other assets are made up of minority participations in Telecom Italia (17%), Lagardère (4.7%), the former Mediaforceurope (19.78%), Telefonica (1.04%) and Banijay (19.21%).

But his participation in UMG is very far from his most important assets. During the current course, this participation is worth around 4.7 billion euros, more than the market capitalization of Vivendi (2.9 billion euros).

This mathematical “aberration” is explained by two factors. First, take into account Vivendi debt (around 3 billion euros) to establish a more relevant comparison.

Then, Vivendi undergoes a high conglomerate discount, the market still penalizing companies that bring together minority participations in heterogeneous companies in the profits of “pure-players” in a sector. This can be explained, in particular, by the absence of (or the weak) operational synergies between these different activities.

At the beginning of the month, Vivendi had published its annual results and then unveiled a re -evaluated net asset (its asset reduced to debt), an indicator which can directly compare itself to market capitalization, of 4.83 billion euros on December 31. Or 4.69 euros per share.

Nu Vivendi was on December 31 at 2.57 euros (and 2.78 euros currently) which translates an ANR discount of 45%. AlphaValue believes that the company is “exaggeratedly decorated” by the market and thus has an opinion on the purchase on the title.