Whatever name the new group is given, Hachette publishing will be run to please the stock market’s fickle whims.

It was back in November 2023 that Lagardère’s Hachette Livre announced a major restructuring that put Hachette UK’s David Shelley in charge of both Hachette US and UK operations (as Michael Pietsch retires), reporting to Hachette Livre deputy CEO Stéphanie Ferran.

At the time, the move was described as a “new English-language management structure,” but with a then imminent takeover of Lagardère by Vivendi, it was all very surreal. Had Vivendi been consulted in any way about this?

Fast-forward to February 2024, and major changes are again on the cards.

Vivendi first intimated major change was imminent in a December press release where it explained it was looking at splitting Vivendi’s operations, now including Lagardère, to “fully unleash the development potential of all its activities.”

On January 30 Vivendi updated its plans, although a final, detailed account, is not expected until March.

So now it is official policy that Vivendi will be split into four groups, “each of which would be listed on the stock market.“

It’s not known if David Shelley and the Lagardère team have been consulted in any meaningful way on this, but the proposals, which have been approved by the Supervisory Board and are therefore facts waiting to happen, will restructure Vivendi’s operations as follows:

Canal+ and Havas will continue much as they are.

What will be new, in real terms, will be first, the creation of an “investment company” which will “own listed and unlisted financial stakes in the cultural, media and entertainment sectors. It would actively support the strategic development of its portfolio companies and would focus on value creation and capital return to its shareholders, through an effective portfolio rotation and a targeted reinvestment policy.”

Okay, if you’re still awake after that business-speak twaddle, let’s get to what really matters for us: What will happen to Hachette?

The fourth division, under the restructuring, will be a new company that groups “assets in publishing and distribution,” namely Lagardère and magazine-publisher Prisma Media. “This entity would foster collaboration between the different activities related to publishing in its broadest sense,” runs the press release.

This is all, according to Vivendi, subject to “the consultation of the employee representative bodies of the concerned entities” (which presumably is biz-speak for lots of jobs to go), as well as regulatory approval and Vivendi shareholders going along with the plan.

We can hope that David Shelley will be left very much where he is, running Hachette’s US and UK book publishing operations, and just maybe the Prism Media “collaboration” will allow that to happen.

But it is clear that a) this was not what Shelley was expecting when Michael Pietsch stepped down and the new “English-language management structure” was initiated last November, and b) whatever name the new group is given, and whoever is in charge, Hachette publishing will be run to please the stock market’s fickle whims.