'Abnormal' AGM vote adds to Vivendi confusion

The gathering last Wednesday, which saw under-fire chairman and CEO Jean-Marie Messier survive but a stock options plan voted down, ended in total confusion as the company then claimed that it had evidence that "a small team armed with a transmitter-receiver and detailed knowledge of the procedures and technical protocols of electronic voting" had manipulated the results.

Vivendi today said that, for each of the 19 resolutions put to investors, there was an "abnormally high retention rate in the order of more than 20% of the total votes cast, and the number of shareholders present in the room represented about 20% of the votes cast."

However, according to the company, verification with some of its largest shareholders after the meeting showed that they had voted differently to the results that came out.

In the review, the company claimed: "The incident is extremely serious in that it could throw suspicion on the entire Paris stock market and all the shareholders' meetings currently using electronic voting, and possibly internet voting in the future. Vivendi Universal is deeply shocked that such fraudulent activity should occur, leading to serious damage for Vivendi Universal and all of its shareholders."

Although the company's findings have been met with a certain amount of scepticism and security experts have questioned whether a hack could have taken place, the company will now call another meeting, expected to take place in June, for shareholders to re-vote on the resolutions.

The report coincided with another nasty surprise for Vivendi investors today as the company reported a record quarterly loss of EU17bn on EU17.1bn of goodwill write-downs on earlier acquisitions, larger than analyst expectations of about EU15bn.

The write-down caused further controversy for the group as brokers claimed that the EU17.2bn figure, placed under US GAAP accounting regulations, was higher than the company's forecast of EU15.2bn given a few weeks ago at the presentation of its full-year results.

Of the results, Messier said in a statement: "I reiterate that Vivendi Universal's priorities are: no significant acquisition activity, an aggressive plan for debt reduction, a clear focus on operations and cash management, a focus on developing new synergies to create greater revenues, and a strategy to mitigate the sources of negative operating free cash flow."

As revealed last week, reports are also continuing that Vivendi is looking to continue its savings purge by abandoning its partnership with mobile operator Vodafone on the multimedia portal Vizzavi, as it looks to cut down on its internet ventures, although the company itself continues to deny the claims.

The company is also reportedly looking to cut its losses in the troubled online business directory Scoot, in which it has a substantial holding, and which also saw increased losses in its annual results announced today.

"www.vivendiuniversal.com ":http://www.vivendiuniversal.com

"www.vizzavi.com ":http://www.vizzavi.com

"22 April 2002: Vizzavi awaits Vivendi dénouement ":http://www.netimperative.info/cmn/viewdoc.jsp?cat=all&ct=nw&docid=BEP1_News_0000009853