Some 'Versal Studios backstory... by Noocyte

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Some 'Versal Studios backstory...

POSTED BY: NOOCYTE
UPDATED: Monday, June 21, 2004 21:16
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VIEWED: 1837
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Monday, June 21, 2004 6:57 PM

Found this article on www.salon.com.

http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2004/06/21/messier/index.html

(do let me know if you can't access the article; I'm a Salon subscriber [great site...unless you share AB's politix], who will happily cut-and-paste the text if fellow Browncoats are blocked)

Relevant to FF (if not necessarily flush with practical usefulness), in that it speaks to some of the shenanigans and punishments (sorta South Park meets Dostoyevsky, nyet?) which led to the whole NBC/'Versal wagon-circling (and its tantalizing prospects for the SciFi Channel theater of operations).

Keep Flyin'!

Department of Redundancy Department

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Monday, June 21, 2004 7:56 PM

RKLENSETH

If you want to read the whole article it gives me two options. Watch some sort of ad or subscribe. Maybe you could cut and paste because I don't want to do either. They're always trying to sell you something aren't they.

Oh, and play Cantr II at www.cantr.net.

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Monday, June 21, 2004 8:10 PM

EMBERS

ACK!
I DID watch their stupid ad, but all I got for my trouble was a different article from today, nothing about Firefly/Joss....
so when I searched I got 95 stories about Joss/Firefly but none, as far as I could find, from today....

what a stupid site!

Please PLEASE could you paste in the article?
I would be very interested!

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Monday, June 21, 2004 9:16 PM

NOOCYTE

Oops! Sorry for delay (Went and watched "Ariel" and "Trash," if that buys any forgiveness). Here's the article:

_________________________________________

June 21, 2004 | PARIS (AP) -- From New York penthouse to Paris jail cell, Jean-Marie Messier's arrest for suspected insider trading and share price manipulation is a new low for the former boss of Vivendi Universal, who once made headlines with his jet-setting lifestyle.

Messier presented himself voluntarily at fraud police headquarters in Paris and was taken into custody Monday, almost two years after being ousted from the top job at the media and telecommunications group.

Authorities are probing a massive share buyback in which Vivendi allegedly spent over $1.2 billion to prop up its own share price in the weeks following the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Messier and his top team are suspected of buying back Vivendi shares well above the authorized volumes even while the company was presenting its financial results -- a practice strictly forbidden by stock market rules.

Messier could remain in custody for up to 48 hours before a decision is taken on whether to place him under formal investigation.

Didier Cornardeau, president of APPAC, a group representing small shareholders, welcomed the news, saying the former CEO "enriched himself at the expense of small shareholders."

Messier's detention is just another stage in the painfully long fall from grace of a man once revered as the embodiment of a new entrepreneurial culture and market savvy taking root in France.

After taking over in 1996 as CEO of water company Generale des Eaux, Messier set about transforming it into a multinational media and telecoms group including the Universal film studios and music label in the United States, European pay-TV station Canal Plus, a French publishing arm and the country's No.2 mobile operator.

The price of his acquisition spree became apparent in 2002, when Vivendi's share price collapsed in a cash crisis during which Vivendi almost drowned in some 35 billion euros ($42 billion) of accumulated debt. Messier was sacked -- but not before he had negotiated a 20.5 million euro ($25 million) severance package.

Messier ultimately had to forfeit many of his perks, including the $25 million severance to settle fraud charges brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. As part of the December 2003 settlement, Vivendi agreed to pay a $50 million fine and end its own investigation into Messier.

Most recently, investigators have focused on whether Messier and his executive team made improper trades of company stock.

A report on the issue by France's Financial Markets Authority, the AMF, was completed last year but has not been released.

According to a prosecution document obtained by The Associated Press, the watchdog group found that Messier and his former CFO Guillaume Hannezo sold Vivendi shares or bought options to sell them just weeks before Vivendi's financial situation began to unravel.

"At the end of 2001, Mr. Messier and Mr. Hannezo were in possession of negative information on Vivendi Universal's financial situation, unknown to the public, of which some was likely to affect the share price," the document reads, summarizing the AMF's findings.

The AMF has acknowledged that its president, Michel Prada, wrote to Messier the following month to say he planned to take no action despite repeated breaches of market rules on share buybacks.

Police raided the AMF's Paris offices on March 30 this year as part of the widening probe, and APPAC, the small shareholders group, has since filed a formal complaint accusing the regulator of "complicity in share price manipulation."

APPAC had also sued Vivendi and its current chairman Jean-Rene Fortou, alleging the company covered up a financial crisis that dated back years. On Monday, Vivendi said a French court had thrown that lawsuit out on the grounds it had no basis.

Since its near-collapse, Vivendi has sold off businesses including its publishing unit and spun off its entertainment arm -- including Universal studios -- to form NBC Universal, controlled by NBC's parent General Electric Co.

Vivendi shares closed 1.2 percent higher at 21.97 euros ($26.67) in Paris, where the CAC-40 benchmark remained flat.

------

Associated Press Writer Pierre-Antoine Souchard contributed to this report.

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Again, pardon the snafu.

Salon's quite okay with the content, but clearly not so much with the nuts and bolts.

Keep flyin'

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