Vivendi will give up its US film business

The troubled media giant Vivendi has moved a step closer to severing its connections with Hollywood.

In his first meeting with shareholders the boss said the company was in talks to sell the film and television studios along with the theme parks that make up Vivendi Universal Entertainment.

Chief executive Jean-Rene Fourtou said it was illusory to think Vivendi could run a US empire spanning Universal studios, theme parks and cable television from Paris.

The company had already made it clear that the entertainment business would go, by Mr Fourtou suggested the sale had moved closer.

"Vivendi's computer games business will also be sold, "the question is knowing when and how."

But he said a quick sale of the record company Universal Music Group was not on the cards.

Messier's unpaid rent

Mr Fourtou, who took over last July, said the company planned to shed 7bn euros ($7.7bn) of assets this year on top of 9bn euros of assets last year.

That would leave Vivendi "re-centred on telecoms" through its telephone business in France and Morocco, but it would also keep its film and TV company Canal Plus.

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Mr Fourtou's predecessor Jean-Marie Messier turned Vivendi from a water company into a vast media empire.

But he spent too heavily and the company came crashing down under the weight of its debts.

In 2001 debts stood at 37.1bn euros and are expected to be about 11bn euros by the end of this year.

"We are still in the bottom of the pit," Mr Fourtou said.

He also told shareholders that Mr Messier had left his $17.5m New York apartment without paying $93,000 in rent.

Vivendi fired its former chief executive without a payoff last July but allowed him to keep the Park Avenue apartment it had bought for his use in exchange for a $31,000 monthly rent, which he paid until December.

"He decided to stay without paying until the end of March 2003. We are therefore claiming three months of rent," Mr Fourtou said.