It's VIVENDI scandal time ! :(

July 2, 2002 10:11 AM

It's VIVENDI scandal time ! :( One more company with "accounting trouble", not your mom and pop shop.
posted by elpapacito (17 comments total)

What if my mom or pop runs Vivendi? :-)
posted by dagny at 10:25 AM on July 2, 2002

Clearly this is the fault of P2P file sharing . . .
posted by hackly_fracture at 10:25 AM on July 2, 2002

That reminds me, I wonder how much money I would need to buy a controlling interest in WorldCom now that the stock price is down to pennies per share.
posted by insomnyuk at 10:34 AM on July 2, 2002

Several hundred million pennies.
posted by goto11 at 10:35 AM on July 2, 2002

At least WarCraft 3 is finished... (I believe they own Sierra, who own Blizzard.)
posted by Dark Messiah at 10:37 AM on July 2, 2002

Vivendi is a pretty evil company, suing MP3.com, forcing a settlement, and then buying the company using the settlement money. And then over the course of the next two years, Vivendi killed off MP3.com as a viable place for new music. =/


So I'm glad.

I don't think Sierra owns Blizzard.
posted by Darke at 10:56 AM on July 2, 2002

I think at one time Sierra owned Blizzard.

"Blizzard Entertainment is a division of Vivendi Universal Publishing, the publishing division of the world's second largest communications group, Vivendi Universal. Vivendi Universal is listed on the French stock exchange (#12777) and also the New York Stock Exchange under ticker symbol 'V'." [company profile]
posted by insomnyuk at 11:16 AM on July 2, 2002

I'm concerned because they own CanalPlus, a major financer of French (and European) films.
posted by panopticon at 11:22 AM on July 2, 2002

Odd that this article fails to mention the recent ouster of Vivendi's CEOby the Bronfmans. [nytimes, you know the drill]. Which, I gotta say, it's about damn time. I used to own a lot of very profitable Seagrams stock. Then came Vivendi, and suddenly I owned a lot of not-at-all-profitable French TV programs (sorry, panopticon :), "synergy", and other useless conglomeratude.

Here's hoping they do dismantle the media empire and get back to where the real money is: booze!
posted by ook at 11:24 AM on July 2, 2002

Oh, wait, now I see it does mention in passing that Messier resigned; just doesn't explain why. Anyway, good riddance.
posted by ook at 11:26 AM on July 2, 2002

I hope this won't effect any possible plans for a re-release of Howard the Duck.
posted by mathis23 at 11:40 AM on July 2, 2002

They also own a bunch of sewage companies so they probably have a fair bit of experience already of what happens when the proverbial...
posted by kerplunk at 11:43 AM on July 2, 2002

From the Mighty Wurlitzer:

If only Clinton hadn't fell victim to a fat little gold digging whore none of this would have happened. Wait, I didn't phrase that correctly, did I? Oh well, I'll condense:

IT'S ALL CLINTON'S FAULT!

Just saving ljr the time and trouble of posting the above screed. Aren't I nice to think of others like that?
posted by nofundy at 11:44 AM on July 2, 2002

If someone told me in high school that when i grew up music would be free, porn would be free, and big ugly mega corporations who added nothing to the art would begin to fall one-by-one, i would have told that dude to quit bogarting the bong and pass it over to me.
posted by tsarfan at 11:46 AM on July 2, 2002

Y'all are blowing this one out of proportion. The junk status on their bonds is a result of their debt, which is unrelated to the accounting issues mentioned in the article (which was mostly a round-up of today and yesterday's news about the company). Although the accounting was sketchy, no one's saying it was illegal.

This is basically a situation where the CEO got a bit to megalomaniacal, so the board ousted him and is bringing someone else in to clean house. That often means selling off parts of the company. Happens all the time with big conglomerates. No need to cry Enron.
posted by me3dia at 12:16 PM on July 2, 2002

Sorry if this has been pointed out already, but there's a good blog tracking every bit of news on Worldcom and it's maintainer is prone to tossing out the occasional gem:

Reuters reports that Sidgmore had productive talks with S.E.C. Chairman Harvey Pitt this morning. No word on whether there was any spooning.

posted by NortonDC at 1:59 PM on July 2, 2002

We are in for a bloodbath of accounting scandels over the next 2 to 6 months. Everyone was looking the other way the past decade during the boom times and now its time to pay the piper. When the indexes get below 1992 levels Id consider buying back in. 1990s didnt happen, reboot!
posted by stbalbach at 4:56 PM on July 2, 2002