Vivendi confirms offer for video sharing site Dailymotion

PARIS: France's Vivendi has made an offer for Dailymotion after attempts by Yahoo! and a Hong Kong telecoms giant to snap up a stake in the video-sharing site were thwarted by the French government.
The YouTube equivalent, which belongs to telecoms group Orange, has long generated interest from companies far and wide but the French government has fervently protected its national technology jewel, saying it would prefer to see it remain in European hands.
Quick-off-the-mark, Vivendi announced on Tuesday it had made an offer to Orange for Dailymotion — one of the 100 most visited websites worldwide — though it gave no details as to the scale or amount of the bid.
The daily Le Monde reported that the French mass media multinational planned to buy up nearly all of the video-sharing platform for 250 million euros ($270 million).
The offer from a French firm is likely to be more amenable to the government, which caused a furore in 2013 when it blocked a bid by US giant Yahoo! to acquire Dailymotion.
Yahoo! Inc. had been in talks to buy a 75-percent stake in Dailymotion, with an estimated value of $300 million at the time. But the government, which holds almost 25 percent of Orange, had insisted on a 50-50 split.
Then Industrial Renewal Minister Arnaud Montebourg, a maverick widely viewed as anti-business who has since been forced out of the government, had said he blocked the deal because the US firm was seeking to "devour" the French company.
His move dealt a blow to France's business image at a time when the struggling country was trying to attract investment and kickstart a moribund economy.
Then last week Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron, a former investment banker viewed as pro-business, raised eyebrows when he came out against exclusive talks between Orange and the PCCW conglomerate owned by the son of Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing.