Ex-Vivendi boss Jean-Marie Messier walks
p2pnet news view Music:- Jean-Marie Messier (left) is a happy man.
So is Warner Music’s Edgard Bronfman jnr.
Both were under suspicion in an insider trading scandal which once rocked France.
Messier, also known as J6M, once ran France’s Vivendi Universal SA, the largest member of the Big 4 Organised Music gang, the others being EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG.
“Vivendi … staggered back from bankruptcy after ex-chairman Jean-Marie Messier`s spending excesses brought it close to ruin,” said a 2004 p2pnet story, going on:
“At one point, French prosecutors were examining whether or not Vivendi deliberately misled investors while it was being run by Messier, who himself faced possible class-actions in the US.
“It was also under criminal investigation in the US.”
Now, French prosecutors investigating alleged insider trading at Vivendi Universal have decided there’s no case against Jean-Marie Messier, says Reuters.
“The prosecutors will recommend that charges be dropped against Messier and all others who were under suspicion, including Warner Music Group Chief Executive Edgar Bronfman Jr,” it says.
Messier, “wanted to be just like a high-flying American CEO, and that (along, of course, with a 70 percent drop in the price of the company’s stock since the beginning of this year) is what got him in trouble with his board and the French people,” said Time in July, 2002.
“His forced resignation … sent shock waves throughout markets on both sides of the Atlantic. Shares in Vivendi fell as much as 40 percent on the Paris Stock Exchange that day as Le Monde questioned the company’s accounting practices and Moody’s cut Vivendi’s credit rating to junk bond status.”
Messier, “who once lived in an $18 million apartment in New York and attracted the sort of media attention usually reserved for rock stars, was ousted from Vivendi in 2002 as it came close to collapse under the mountain of debt he had built up,” says Reuters.
Bronfman was, “placed under formal investigation in February last year as part of the Messier probe,”says the story.
“He was formerly a director of Vivendi and sold shares in 2002. Bronfman resigned from the Vivendi board in December 2003.”
Now Messier is promoting a book about the financial crisis, says another Reuters story.
It’s called, “The day the sky fell on our heads”.
(Thanks, M-C) on
p2pnet – Huge Vivendi tax break, August 27, 2004
Reuters – Prosecutors find no case against Vivendi CEO, January 24, 2009
Time -Person of the Week: Jean-Marie Messier, July 5, 2002
Reuters – Ex “master of the world” Messier pipes up on crisis, January 15, 2009
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February 3rd, 2009 at 12:13 pm
in other words…
THANK YOU JOE BIDEN
MR HOLLYWOOD
now let the corruption ride…..didn’t obama have a few, questionable bits too his past…anyone digging? and whats that 274 MILLION in bailout cash for hollywood about
February 3rd, 2009 at 1:31 pm
riiiiiiight.
None of this would have happened at all if McCain had gotten elected.
Isn’t it about time the political butthurt ended ?
This isn’t about Obama and Biden, this is a long term problem that has been
going along in administration after administration for many, many years.
To single out a single politician for ages of corruption is intellectually dishonest.
I KNOW you’re better than that.
The title of Mr. Hollywood is shared by many, and as long as we keep bickering
back and forth about OUR guy versus THEIR guy, we play right into their hands
and it will never end.
Please, give it a rest.