Anxious shoppers looking for a last-minute stocking-filler could do worse than pick up 1,000 Years Of Annoying The French.
Author Stephen Clarke’s fabulous romp through ten centuries of Anglo-French relations reveals that croissants were created by an Austrian baker, William the Conqueror was a sworn enemy of France and the guillotine was invented in Yorkshire.
Now, a new jibe can be added to the list – the decision by French billionaire Vincent Bollore to list the country’s flagship media business Canal+ on the London stock market, not the Paris bourse.
Canal+ has been hailed as the biggest flotation in the UK for more than two years.
Valued at more than £2billion, Bollore’s decision has provided a much-needed boost to the London market, which has suffered as sentiment has turned against UK stocks and investors have increasingly poured their money into US shares.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves made the most of London’s coup, inviting Canal+ boss Maxime Saada to 11 Downing Street last week and telling him how excited she was by the decision to list here.
Library: StudioCanal is behind a string of quintessentially British titles, such as Wicked Little Letters and Amy Winehouse’s life-story Back To Black (pictured)
But for small investors, the key question is whether the shares will prove a glitzy addition to the UK market or a flop, like so many debuts of recent years.
Early signs are not encouraging. The shares began trading at 290p but ended the day down more than 20 per cent at 226.4p. They fell again yesterday, slipping another 6.8 per cent, or 15.35p, to 211.05p.
Unlike most flotations, Canal+ is, in City jargon, a demerger. That means it is being spun off from parent company Vivendi, a multi-billion-euro conglomerate listed in France.
Some Vivendi shareholders only want to hold French stocks and some are prevented from owning investments outside Paris, so there are plenty of sellers. Others are selling for tax reasons.
Potential buyers are biding their time, weighing up whether they want the new shares and if so, at what price. So should small UK investors buy into this newly-floated French company?
Canal+ was founded 40 years ago as a French subscription TV channel. Today, it is a global entertainment business operating in more than 50 countries.
StudioCanal, established alongside the TV arm, has been a key contributor to growth. Now a major production house, it is behind the Christmas feel-good hit Paddington In Peru.
Seen by many as utterly adorable – and scorned by others as sentimental schmaltz – Paddington In Peru is undeniably a record-breaker, making almost £10m in its opening weekend.
With stars such as Ben Whishaw, Olivia Colman and Hugh Bonneville, the film would seem to epitomise UK culture and values.
But StudioCanal, which made it, has a roster that includes a string of quintessentially British titles, such as Wicked Little Letters, also starring Oscar-winner Colman, and Amy Winehouse’s life-story Back To Black.
There is a rich library of films and series too, one of the largest in the world, with 8,000 offerings to its name from Terminator 2 and Rambo to Bridget Jones and Love Actually.
TV businesses have had a torrid time in the digital age. Streaming companies such as Netflix, Apple and Amazon have turned the industry on its head, offering highly flexible subscription deals that provide sofa surfers with access to myriad films and series at any hour of the day or night.
Here, BBC and ITV have been playing catch-up with iPlayer and ITV X. But Canal+ chief Saada took a different approach.
With a blend of Gallic charm and Parisian panache, he approached Netflix with a proposition – that instead of operating as rivals, they could act as partners.
In practice, this meant that Canal+ would offer its subscribers a tip-top package, combining its own existing array of titles alongside access to the entire Netflix portfolio of films and series.
Netflix boss Reed Hastings agreed, and Saada has since persuaded Apple TV, Paramount and HBO producer Max to join the party. Canal+ can, therefore, present itself to industry rivals and potential investors as a unique ‘super-aggregator’.
For subscribers, it means being able to choose from a vast array of entertainment on a single platform. No more switching from one streamer to another.
Even sports fans are well catered for, with Premier League matches and Formula One races all there, as well as numerous lesser-known competitions.
Hit: Paddington In Peru, which stars Ben Whishaw, Olivia Colman and Hugh Bonneville, made almost £10m in its opening weekend
Monthly prices vary from €2 to €80 and the group has almost 27m subscribers.
Saada and his crew are ambitious, hoping to take paid subscriber numbers to 50m and beyond through a blend of organic growth and acquisitions.
UK sofa-surfers are not in Saada’s sights so we cannot subscribe and there are no plans for change in the short term. Further afield, however, Canal+ has amassed a 45pc stake in MultiChoice, a leading entertainment firm in Africa, offering TV, video, streaming and sport to millions of consumers across the continent.
Earlier this year, Saada, 54, launched an offer to acquire the remaining shares in MultiChoice – a deal that has been recommended by the MultiChoice board and would transform the Canal+ business.
The group has a growing presence in Asia too, with a chunky 37 per cent stake in popular streaming platform Viu, a holding that is likely to increase over time.
Saada’s stable even includes a You Tube-type video-sharing platform, known as Daily Motion, offering free access to news, sports, music and entertainment clips.
Traditional UK television channels have been slow to recognise the importance of video-sharing apps. ITV agreed only last week to put its programmes on
YouTube. Canal+ bought Daily Motion nearly a decade ago and monthly viewing figures run into hundreds of millions.
So why would this go-getting French media company choose to float its shares in London?
And just how tempting is it for UK investors? Canal+ has spent years nestling within Vivendi, a sprawling French conglomerate.
More recently, Bollore has striven to present the group as a media and communications specialist, including businesses such as advertising agency Havas and publisher Louis Hachette.
Bollore and his family own around 30 per cent of the shares but other investors have continued to view the company as a bit of a mish-mash.
Vincent Bollore, 72, eventually conceded that they may be right and chose to break the business into its constituent parts, with Havas listing in Amsterdam, Hachette and Vivendi’s rump staying in Paris and Canal+, the jewel in the crown, opting for London.
Those close to the company cite three key reasons for the decision. First, Canal+ wants to be known as an international media company, not just a French one.
Two-thirds of its subscribers come from outside France and that percentage is likely to increase in time.
London hosts numerous businesses from overseas and City-based institutional investors are thought to be more receptive to non-domestic operators than their counterparts on the other side of the Channel.
Second, Canal+ produces heaps of films and TV series in English so it made sense to list in an English-speaking country.
The third reason relates to MultiChoice. If that deal goes through, Canal+ would seek to list on the Johannesburg stock exchange as well. London has a fast-track agreement with the South Africans so a second listing would be relatively easy to arrange.
Life is unlikely to be easy in London, though, at least in the early days. Canal+ shares have had an inauspicious debut and may well drift down further.
The company operates in a highly competitive market. Last year, it delivered €6.2billion (£5.1billion) of revenues and €472million of underlying profits.
A slight uplift is expected this year but the group is battling with the French authorities over a complex tax issue and some parts of the business are loss-making.
A brighter outlook is forecast for 2025, particularly if the MultiChoice deal is successful.
Is this share a buy? Canal+ may prove an attractive bet for investors with a long-term view.
Some brokers believe the price could double over the coming year so individual investors may fancy picking up a few shares in anticipation. But there is no need to rush. Canal+ will almost certainly take time to prove its mettle.
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