the big one is vivendi. vivendi is a media conglomerate. of the biggest in europe, and back in 2014, he started with a small stake but exerted influence through that state by taking over the board, drive management decisions. he became chairman and now he has started a strategy in southern europe to try to build something mottled on disney. modeled on disney. -- carol: they call him the smiling killer. ed has a reputation of being a : tough customer when it comes to taking over companies. and exerting his influence on the board. the big one he has done is telecom italia. telecom italia used to be the state run monopoly with the landline business in italy, and he wanted to use its distribution to put vivendi content. will be familiar to a lot of us. that contentwill be familiar to a lot of us. it is universal music, youtube, lady gaga, taylor swift. it is also studio canal, the biggest film production studio in europe. he had this dream of becoming a kind of disney in southern europe, but it has gone sideways on him in the last year. jason:

carol: he is still the number one shareholder in vivendi.on: it may help his family regain and hold onto control of that empire. >> vincent bollore is dynamic. he is a throwback. his style is going in with a minority stake. he's done this in multiple companies but the big one is vivendi. it is a media conglomerate. one of the biggest in europe, and back in 2014, he started with a small stake but exerted influence. he took over the board, became chairman, and now he has started a strategy to try and build something modeled on disney. carol: they call him the smiling killer. >> has a reputation of being a tough customer when it comes to taking over companies. the big one he has done is telecom italia. it used to be the state-run monopoly and he wanted to use the distribution to put vivendi content. that will be familiar to a lot of us. it is universal music, youtube, lady gaga, taylor swift. it iso stuio canal, the biggest film production studio in europe. he had this dream of becoming a disney in southern europe, but it has gone sideways. jas

vivendi reported first-quarter earnings. they beat estimates. biggest driver for them has been universal music group. this bodes so well for them as they are trying to sell a stake in that record company. morgan stanley said it could be worth $30 billion. for vivendi and publicis. thank you very much for joining us. get all the latest stock stories from our equities team on your bloomberg terminal. the open less than four minutes away. this is bloomberg. ♪ matt: a minute away from the open of cash equity trading. let's look at the markets. annmarie hordern is standing by. annmarie: let's kick it off with the euro-dollar. strength against the u.s. dollar. csi 300. we saw asian equities higher, down just two percentage points. oil to the downside this morning, starting off the week softer after the longest winning streak in three years. the u.s. oil rig counts up for a second week after declining for six. range as trading in a we count down to the brexit deadline. this is where futures are setting up. higher in london, germany, and france. most li

yes done this in multiple companies but the big one is vivendi.is one of the biggest in europe, and back in 2014, he started with a small stake but exerted influence. he took over the board, became chairman, and now he has started a strategy to try and build something modeled on disney. carol: they call him the smiling killer. >> has a reputation of being a tough customer when it comes to taking over companies. the big one he has done is telecom italia. it used to be the state-run monopoly and he wanted to use the distribution to put vivendi content. that will be familiar to a lot of us. it is universal music, youtube, lady gaga, taylor swift. canal, thestudio biggest studio in europe. he had this dream of becoming a disney in southern europe, but it has gone sideways. jason: enter paul singer, not a phone call you want to get. >> yeah. for the last year, europe has been watching this amazing battle between holsinger the hedge fund manager and bollore. the problem is that it has loads of debt. and you are dealing with an old technology. land lines

carol: he is the number one shareholder in vivendi. may help his family regain control to that vast empire. throwback to an era of corporate radars. his style is going in with a minority stake in companies, and he has done this with shipping companies, and electric car company, and the big one is vivendi, a media conglomerate, one of the biggest in europe. small4, he started with a steak and started exerting influence by overtaking the board, driving management decisions. he became chairman and started a big strategy in southern europe to build something modeled on disney. carol: they call him the smiling killer. edward: he has a reputation of being a tough customer when it comes to taking over companies and exerting influence on the board. the latest one is telecom italia. it used to be the state run monopoly so it has the landline business in italy, and he wanted to use this distribution to put vendee content. that will be familiar to a lot of us. it is universal music, you too, , andgaga, taylor swift canal, thenow, -- biggest film

. >>> elsewhere, another company we've been watching quite closely for the last several months, vivendis had higher revenues the acquisition of the adidas publishing business. the company said it's making progress on the sale of up to 50% stake of umg let's get back to marcus morris from alliance global investors the u.s. is i can ckicking into gear this week what is your sense of how investors are positioned this results season >> i think it's interesting because actually for the first time in a number of years you've seen investors heavily under weight the market and particularly under weight europe in europe we've seen 13 consecutive numbers, equity outflows it's been quite painful. you've seen many people miss out on that rally. i think positioning here is relatively cautious. actually that provides the up side opportunity if many of these companies are able to post less bad results than the market is fairing. >> it's a valuation play i think back to the imf and all of the talk there was how weak the eurozone is and, you know, essentially they slash their growth forecast. so is mult

in struggling areas ten thousand ton hold meetings were held across france in response to the way vivendi governments yellow vests protests president to mental macro will announce proposals based on the debate findings later this month it's actually butler has more now from perhaps. the french prime minister at war filippo called the great debate a unique experience in terms of participation in democracy both for the public and for the french government while the great debate was launched by presence of mind or my call it was in response to the yellow vest protests some people said that they wanted more say in democracy and what it was the leap has been doing is really sketching out some of the major findings the themes that have emerged from these great debates which have taken place across the country ten thousand town hall meetings also online eighty two million people took part and in terms of those main themes phillipe says that people are talking about wanting lower taxes more spending power more referenda in key political issues and also tighter controls on immigration and what the