Vivendi to Pay Dividend After Swing to Profit
From Associated Press
Vivendi Universal posted a better-than-expected 2004 profit and said it would pay shareholders a dividend for the first time in three years.
The French telecom and media conglomerate said it earned 1.86 billion euros ($2.48 billion) in the fourth quarter, contrasted with a loss of 642 million euros the year before.
The profit was in large part the result of 1.52 billion euros in financial gains from asset disposals and an absence of charges from the year before.
The fourth-quarter earnings brought Vivendi’s full-year profit to 754 million euros ($1 billion), up from a loss of 1.14 billion euros in 2003. A poll of 18 analysts had forecast full-year profit of 517 million euros.
