Vivendi issues €2.1 billion bond as M7 acquisition approaches

Vivendi has successfully placed a €2.1 billion bond ahead of the acquisition of M7 by Canal+, the French operator it owns.

The bond is comprised of three tranches with maturities of three, six and nine and a half years.

The company also confirmed that the issue was oversubscribed more than 2.5 times.

Vivendi’s Canal+ initially announced an agreement to buy pay-TV operator M7 Group on May 27, as it ramps up its ambitions to take on Netflix in Europe.

Upon its completion, Canal+ will be in seven European countries. This will bring its total subscribers to approximately 20 million.

Upon the initial announcement, Maxime Saada, chairman of the CANAL+ group executive board, stated: “We are particularly pleased with this acquisition project made possible by Vivendi. The operation would allow CANAL+ Group to approach 20 million subscribers worldwide. Our global subscriber base will have almost doubled in five years, with a clear acceleration starting in 2015. This major operation will allow us to strengthen our distribution capacity in order to leverage content originating from our library and our numerous production operations in Europe.”