Vivendi announced it is abandoning its plan to spin off publishing company Editis into an independent, publicly traded company, and instead they are negotiating to sell the division outright. Vivendi “received several offers for the sale of 100 percent of the shares of Editis,” and has “decided to enter into exclusive negotiations” with International Media Invest (IMI), a subsidiary of billionaire Daniel Kretinsky’s Czech Media Invest (which owns a number of prominent French magazines). Kretinsky’s portfolio also includes stakes in the newspaper Le Monde and the TV group TF1. The sale of Editis is designed to win approval from regulators […]