VIVENDI TRIMS JOBS AT CANAL PLUS

The move follows a strengthening of Canal Plus’ management team and attempts to find merger partners for its loss-making international operations.

It’s just part of Vivendi chief Jean-Marie Messier’s attempts to tighten the financial ship at the merged company. Turning troubled pay-television unit Canal Plus—the third wheel in last year’s $34 billion merger of Vivendi and Seagram—into a profitable division of the company is a crucial part of Vivendi’s attempts to meet the financial targets set at the time of the merger.

More than 200 posts are to be cut, although Canal said it aimed to find many of those affected by the layoffs alternative employment within the group. The company released no details of cost savings. But the division is expected to provide cumulative annual growth in EBITDA of around 40% between 2000 and 2002.

Vivendi has launched Canal Plus—Europe's largest pay-television operator, with leading positions in France, Spain and Italy—into a series of merger discussions with various rival pay-television platforms across Europe, but many of the company’s attempts have been rebuffed.

Canal's ability to merge its way out of the red, according to FT, will also depend on competition authorities dropping objections to mergers that leave national markets with just one dominant pay-TV company.