Liberty Chief May Bid for Vivendi Assets

John Malone, the billionaire chairman of Liberty Media Corp., said he won’t rule out bidding for some of the entertainment assets of Vivendi Universal, which is in turmoil after former Chief Executive Jean-Marie Messier last week resigned under pressure.

Some investors say Barry Diller, head of Vivendi’s U.S. television and film business, may buy all or part of the firm’s U.S. assets. Other possible bidders include Malone.

“I won’t rule it out,” Malone said, speaking after the morning presentations at Allen & Co.’s annual invitation-only conference in Idaho for billionaires, entertainers and top media executives. “It all depends on whether there’s value there,” he added.

Messier was scheduled to address the conference, but those in attendance said he failed to show. A hastily-put-together panel, featuring such moguls as Diller, Warren Buffett, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Howard Stringer served as a substitute. The topic: corporate governance of branding.

In Paris, meanwhile, Vivendi Universal board member Marc Vienot said the company’s new chief executive, Jean-Rene Fourtou, is there “to stay” and wasn’t chosen only as a temporary replacement to Messier.

“I picked him,” Vienot, Societe Generale’s honorary chairman, told reporters at an investor conference. The 63- year-old Fourtou, who is the No. 2 on drug maker Aventis’ supervisory board, “had to be persuaded,” Vienot said.

Messier resigned under pressure last week after his $77 billion of takeovers caused Vivendi’s stock to fall 77% this year, raised debt to $16.7 billion and prompted Moody’s Investors Service to cut the company’s credit rating to “junk.”

Before Fourtou was appointed last week, newspaper reports said he would stay at Vivendi between six months and a year.

In other developments at Vivendi, Universal Pictures agreed to a multi-year contract with Peter Guber’s Mandalay Pictures to finance and distribute films made by the independent production company.

Financial terms weren’t disclosed. Mandalay previously had a contract for nearly five years with Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures, the companies said.

Before moving to Paramount in 1998, Mandalay had been based at Sony Corp., where Guber was studio chief.

Mandalay’s current projects in development include “Saint of Dragon’s,” “Maneater,” from the novel to be published next year, and “The Jacket,” produced by George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh’s Section 8.

Bloomberg News was used in compiling this report.