Lack of outlook hits Vivendi's shares

Vivendi’s shares slipped on Tuesday after it said it is not planning to give a full-year group financial outlook. The entertainment-to-telecoms conglomerate said it was waiting for more clarity on sales of key asset sales. To cut debt and move out of the capital-intensive telecoms business, Vivendi wants to sell its stake in Maroc Telecom and Brazilian telecoms and TV subsidiary GVT. Les Echos newspaper reported on Tuesday that Vivendi had failed to obtain offers near its preferred price of 7 billion euros for GVT and was delaying the sale. Vivendi did beat its full-year earnings target, helped by video game sales and a smaller-than-expected profit drop at its French mobile phone unit SFR. It posted full-year adjusted net income of 2.86 billion euros before one-offs, ahead of its target of 2.7 billion. Revenue rose 0.6 percent to 28.99 billion. Shares in Vivendi, whose businesses range from video games, music and pay-TV to telecoms, have lost about two-fifths of their value in the last five years. The company is penalised by a conglomerate discount, meaning investors undervalue its intrinsic value because of the range of subsidiaries – Vivendi has said it wants to shake this off to improve its valuation.