Word: messier
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...first to come to grief over his Anglo-Saxon ambitions was Jean-Marie Messier, a Frenchman equally at home in New York as in Paris. Messier was forced out as chief executive of entertainment giant Vivendi Universal last month because he ran up huge debts in a spree of expensive media acquisitions, among other sins...
...remove a company from the influence of the government? "The interference of politics was completely wrong," said Michael Rogowski, president of the Federal Association of German Industry. At least Sommer has the consolation that he is not alone among embattled European CEOs. Only three weeks ago, Jean-Marie Messier was removed as chief executive of French media giant Vivendi, where a string of acquisitions had left the company with a pile of debt and a slumping share price. France Télécom chairman Michel Bon is also under pressure because of high debts. In the past, Europe...
...Vivendi, Messier created a complex media waterworks from what was once a simple French water utility, acquiring a hodgepodge of cross-border assets, from phone companies to film studios, that at some point were supposed to connect seamlessly and gush money. But he was late to the Big Media theory. Firms like Disney, AOL Time Warner, News Corp. and Viacom had already spent billions connecting content with distribution. To catch up, Messier became a serial acquirer, buying the Bronfmans' Seagram Co. and its Universal movie studio, theme parks and music group for $34 billion in stock. Last year...
...billion to cover debts and contingent liabilities this year. Though Vivendi reported revenues of $56 billion last year, it also recorded the largest corporate loss in French history--about $12 billion--caused mainly by writing down the value of assets. Vivendi's stock fell 85% from its peak before Messier was booted. Fourtou "is going to have to turn Vivendi into a smaller and, above all, clearer company," says Marc Touati, chief economist for Natexis-Banques Populaires in Paris. "That will involve straightening out the books so investors can see exactly where things stand." It might also mean setting Vivendi...
There was no shortage of irony as Bronfman helped wrest Vivendi away from chief executive Jean-Marie Messier. After all, like Messier, Bronfman always came across as a bit of a dilettante and star-struck CEO. At Universal he once sent a memo to studio executives saying he expected to have double-digit earnings growth every quarter, a virtual impossibility in such a hit-driven industry...