French pay TV giant Canal+, which is behind “Paddington” producer Studiocanal, has officially split from parent company Vivendi in time for its 40-year anniversary. Making its debut solo on the London stock exchange on Monday, Canal+ enlisted a homegrown executive, Amandine Ferré — who has been at the company for 15 years and was most recently based in China — to “cut the cord” and engineer the IPO.
Canal+ shares opened this morning at 290p and dropped by about 20% after noon local time, giving the banner an estimated valuation of £2.4 billion. Ferré, who is chief financial officer and a member of Canal+’s management board, tells Variety that the fluctuations were anticipated. “We know that in the first few weeks, our share price is going to be a little volatile,” she says. But the exec is forecasting Canal+’s “shares price volatility will calm down in January.”
Ferré previously spearheaded the French TV group’s acquisition of Chinese streamer Viu and flew back from China to Paris earlier this year after getting a call from Canal+ Group CEO and Vivendi board member Maxime Saada, whom she’s known from her early days working as a strategy consultant at Roland Berger. “You only do a listing once in a career, so I wasn’t going to turn it down!” she says. Ferré, 41, comes in with a deep knowledge of both Canal+ and the international market, having grown up in Africa and lived in India and China. “I’ve had nine jobs in 15 years — It gives me a good overview of what the group does,” she says, citing her experience at Dailymotion, the Canal+-owned online video sharing platform, as well as Canal+ Tech and Studiocanal.
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The listing of Canal+ is part of Vivendi’s company-wide split project which also sees advertising group Havas and retail giant Louis Hachette Group listed separately in Amsterdam and Paris, respectively.
Ferré says the idea behind the split is to seek a higher valuation for Canal+ and better leverage the growth of these assets. “Before the split, Vivendi was suffering from a so-called conglomerate discount,” she says. “It is our belief that the sum of the value of each entity in the Vivendi group, i.e. Havas, Canal+, Louis Hachette and all the other shareholdings was largely undervalued when compared to the actual value of Vivendi shares.”
It’s not the first time Vivendi has done this maneuver on high-profile assets. In September 2021, Vivendi scored a major coup by listing Universal Music Group, the music powerhouse whose talent roster includes Taylor Swift and Drake, in Amsterdam, and saw UMG’s shares skyrocket by 39% to reach a valuation of nearly $53 billion. Under the leadership of Canal+ Group’s supervisory board chairman Yannick Bollore, the spinoff plan is also meant to drive growth and synergy opportunities with Canal+’s subsidiaries overseas, including MultiChoice in Africa, Viaplay in Scandinavia and Viu in South-East Asia.
“The listing will enable us to use our stock as currency. We’ve already acquired shares in a number of companies and in the future, we may exchange shares. It opens up opportunities that we didn’t have before,” Ferré says.
Below, Ferré delves into the ins and outs of Canal+’s listing in London, what it means for the company and where it’s headed strategically speaking.
You’ve been at Canal+ for a long time. Why do you think now is a good time for Canal+ to get listed on its own at the London Stock Exchange?
Canal+ has changed so much over the last few years. When I started working here 15 years ago, Canal+ was a very French company, and international operations were still very small. Today, we operate in over 50 countries, and two-thirds of our subscribers are outside France. So we’re no longer a Franco-French player like other media companies listed in Paris, such as TF1 and M6, which are firmly rooted in the French market. This is not the case for us at all. Our growth is very much international, both organically and through M&A. Our ongoing acquisition of the MultiChoice group, Africa’s leading pay-TV group, would be the greatest operation in our history. We’re really focused on Sub-Saharan Africa, and MultiChoice fits in perfectly.
French President Emmanuel Macron told Variety that companies like Canal+ should remain in France, which has the biggest stock market platform in Europe, the CAC 40. So why go to London, especially post-Brexit?
Brexit makes the U.K. just a little more complicated on certain tax points, but otherwise it’s still a very dynamic local market, and above all, it’s still an entry point for the whole Anglo-Saxon part of the world. Also, with regards to our acquisition of MultiChoice, if it goes through, being listed in London will be a big gain because there are links between the London Stock Exchange and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. When you’re listed in London, there’s what’s called a “fast track” so it’s easier to get listed in Johannesburg.
Being listed in London also gives you a stronger footprint in the English-speaking world, right?
Investors interested in the media are much more present in the Anglo-Saxon market than in France. That’s the way the story goes. Pay TV is a fixed-cost market, so you have to be big. And it’s easier to be big when you’re doing English-language programming than when you’re doing French-language programming, because the market is bigger. To give you an example, when we made our biggest series, which we released this year, called “Paris Has Fallen,” we shot it in English. Because it’s easier to sell internationally. So yes, we’re already very focused on the English-speaking world.
I’ve read that this split is meant to end conglomerate discount. Can you explain what this is?
That’s the whole point of the Vivendi split, because what we’re doing isn’t a real IPO in the classical sense of the term. Before the split, Vivendi was suffering from a so-called conglomerate discount. It is our belief that the sum of the value of each entity in the Vivendi group, i.e. Havas, Canal+, Louis Hachette and all the other shareholdings was largely undervalued when compared to the actual value of Vivendi shares. Hence the interest in doing this split comes at a good time for Canal+ because we’re really in a new phase of our history. It’s a new phase of expansion through the acquisition of MultiChoice, and more globally, we’ve completely pivoted in recent years. We’re not the same player we were 10 years ago because we have been able to sign deals with all the big players. In 2015, when Netflix and other platforms started to arrive on the French market, everyone already declared us dead, but Maxime Saada led Canal+ to adopt what we call a super-aggregation strategy. And today, our subscribers have access to Netflix, Apple TV+ and the leading platforms through our Canal+ app. This is unique compared to other PayTV players in Europe, as we’re the only ones to have adopted this hybrid model. It’s enabled us to continue to grow in mature markets.
Will Canal+ continue being a French company?
We’re going to be listed in London, but we’re still a French company. So our head office will remain here, and we’ll continue to pay our taxes in France. Above all, we’re very proud of our French heritage. We’re deeply rooted in the financing of French cinema and the French creative industry.
Some media companies, like Mediawan, have come out of the stock market and others like Pathé delayed their IPOs, so why has Canal+ decided to get listed on its own?
It was Vivendi’s decision to do this split but we immediately saw it as an opportunity for us, because we’re in this phase of development. We’ve grown a lot in recent years and we’ve made a lot of acquisitions, and the listing will also facilitate these acquisitions, and enable us to use our stock as currency. As I was saying, we’ve already acquired shares in a number of companies and in the future, we may exchange shares. We’ll have to see. In any case, it opens up opportunities that we didn’t have before.
How do you think Canal+ will fare at the London Stock Exchange in the short term?
We’re in it for the long haul. We know that in the first few weeks, our share price is going to be a little volatile. That’s totally normal when you do a company split like this. Even more so when you change listing places. Vivendi was listed in Paris and we’ll be listed in London. So some of Vivendi’s investors won’t want to remain shareholders in a Canal company in London, because we’ll be too small. In fact, some shareholders are Vivendi shareholders because it’s part of the CAC. They follow the indexes. And because the Canal+ group isn’t in the CAC, they’ll exit in a very mechanical way. So, we know that there’s going to be what’s called in technical terms the flow back, where people who follow the indexes are going to leave, and people who don’t want to keep their shares outside the euro zone are likely to leave. So we know it’s going to be a bit herky-jerky in December, probably early January, because not much happens between Dec. 20 and the first week of January.
How key is Africa in Canal+’s international expansion?
We no longer communicate figures just for Africa, but for Africa-Asia we have almost 10 million subscribers. In Africa, the population of 1.2 billion in Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to reach 2 billion by 2025. The GDP per capita is increasing fast and as the economy grows, people are equipping with television and that’s what allows us to have a penetration rate that increases at the same time as the country’s economy blossoms.
And you have a deep knowledge of Africa, don’t you?
I used to live in Cameroon, really deep in the bush. My father ran aluminum factories, so we were always living in remote places. My brother and I went to school at the factory. This was before Canal was present in Africa. Back then, the only channel we received was the Cameroonian public TV channel, with somewhat limited programming. My grandfather used to record Canal+ and its cartoons and films on VHS. Every month, he would send us a package with Canal’s subscriber magazine, and we’d get our share of VHS. The only TV I grew up with was Canal+. So for me, the brand is really strong. For us it was Christmas every month. We’d watch each movie 14 times because that’s all we had!
What about Canal+’s development in Asia?
We’ve been doing a number of things in Asia recently. On the one hand, we’ve invested in Viu, a streaming platform a bit like Netflix which is focusing on Asian content, operating in South East Asia, based in Hong Kong. It’s the main platform that has resisted the U.S. giants. When you look at the rankings in Asia now, there’s Disney, Netflix, Prime in Asia and there’s only Viu left. Their positioning is a little different from the others — they’re very focused on local content, buying a lot of Korean series and Chinese series. They also produce original Viu content.
The Chinese market, once perceived as the El Dorado by Hollywood, has radically changed since the pandemic and has closed off. What’s your view on it since you lived in China for the last three years?
In Europe, we have an extremely fragmented view of what’s going on in China. It has closed up a lot since COVID, but it’s exciting to see the impact of political change in China on the audiovisual sector. Fifteen years ago, all American blockbusters opened in Chinese theaters. Today, this is much less the case. There’s a real desire to develop the Chinese audiovisual sector, because it has a real soft power dimension. There’s a desire to promote what is called “red cinema” which is funded by the Ministry of Propaganda. But in fact, if you take a step back, American cinema is also patriotic cinema. The Chinese are really trying to promote their domestic cinema. The same thing is happening in series today. Five or six years ago, the Chinese series were all period, costume shows. But China really saw how South Korea has used this soft power linked to culture to promote its model, and they’re adopting a similar strategy. Now, some Chinese series are of excellent quality and very close to a Korean series. And even in Vietnam, for example, we have started buying Chinese series, and that’s what’s driving our top ratings now. We buy them for our territories because that’s what people also want to see.
How has it been adjusting back to Paris after living in China for a few years?
I have twin daughters so I brought them with me here, and my husband is still in China for a few months. Every morning, my daughters ask me, “What are you going to do today?” so I tell them in children’s words, but they already know what a listing is! They just drew me a [picture of] “Paddington 4 on the Great Wall” and asked me, “Can you send it to Studiocanal so they can make ‘Paddington 4 on the Great Wall’?”
Are you planning to stay in France now?
Yes, this is only the beginning of the story. We’re in for the long haul. So the idea is for me to stay and accompany the growth of the company.
Canal+ has welcomed veteran Hollywood exec Bob Bakish, most recently CEO of Paramount, as its new board member. Is Canal+ looking to invest in the U.S.?
If there was a great opportunity, we’d take a look. But it’s not our priority at the moment. We’ve already got a lot going on in Africa, which is still our core area of development, and in Asia with Viu. And we’ve also taken a stake in Viaplay in Scandinavia. Today, we’re concentrating on these three major assets.
I’ve heard ITV is on the market, is Canal+ interested?
I’m not commenting, but clearly, in the short term, we’ve got a lot on our plate. Besides, it’s essentially free TV. It’s less our core business. We’re still very much into pay TV.