FrontPage

Nation

World

Media

Culture

Technology

Commentary

France's Vivendi and its Canal Plus pay TV unit on June 19 announced a $29.4 billion purchase of Seagram Co. Ltd. The all-stock deal, approved by the boards of the three companies on Monday, is expected to rival a planned America Online Inc. /Time Warner Inc. union by combining Seagram's vast entertainment holdings with an Internet and telecommunications network to satisfy European's burgeoning market for media content.

"Together, we will have an enormous subscriber base across all of the most popular and fastest-growing communications networks and technologies," said Vivendi Chairman Jean-Marie Messier, who will lead the combined company, Vivendi Universal.

The deal marks the end of the Bronfman family dynasty, which bought the Seagram liquor assets from Joseph Seagram and Sons in 1928 and, under the leadership of grandson Edgar Bronfman Jr., transformed the company into an entertainment giant. In addition to the liquor division, Seagram owns Universal Pictures, PolyGram records, and the Universal Studios theme parks.

The deal calls for Vivendi to assume some $7 billion in Seagram debt, but much of that should be paid off by the sale of Seagram's liquor business, including brands like Chivas Regal whiskey and Absolut vodka. The liquor business is expected to sell for $6-7 billion.

The companies said they expect the transaction to be completed before the end of the year, although analysts have said it will undergo intense scrutiny from European and American regulators. The combined company will have revenues of $55 billion and a market capitalization of $100 billion.

Messier is eager to distribute Seagram's extensive entertainment content via its new Internet portal, dubbed Vizzavi. Vivendi launched the portal with British partner Vodafone AirTouch Plc on Monday, offering Internet access and online services to the group's combined 80 million mobile phone users and pay TV subscribers in Europe.

Vivendi also controls France's number two telecommunications operator Cegetel, publisher Havas, film group Pathe and has a stake in Web provider AOL France.

Search the Web.

Hitler's Willing Executioners
Ordinary Germans & the Holocaust
by Daniel Goldhagen
Goldhagen reaches conclusions that are both uncompromising and savage, rejecting as inadequate the conventional historical explanations for how an entire country could allow the Holocaust to happen, and gives the first detailed, broad-ranging account of the actual killers of the Jews.