The acquisition of Hachette Livre, number three in the world in the publishing sector, by its new shareholder from November 2023, Vincent Bolloré’s Vivendi group, reaches a new milestone. A manager close to the Breton billionaire, Jean-Christophe Thiery, was officially named deputy CEO of Hachette Livre on Thursday, October 10, confirming information from The letter published the day before.
The 57-year-old, who worked in the prefecture before joining the Ministry of Finance, has worked for Vincent Bolloré since 2001. As CEO of Bolloré Média, he developed the media division, managing, for example, Direct 8 launches. or daily newspapers tomorrow alive, which ceased publication in 2010. He was then appointed president of the board of directors of Canal+ in 2015 and, three years later, president of the supervisory board of the same group.
This new number two of Hachette (which in France includes Fayard, Grasset, Stock and Calmann Levy) has never worked in the publishing sector. If not provisionally, to quickly replace Arnaud Lagardère, general director of Hachette Livre between the end of April and the end of June, when the courts had forced the latter to abandon her position due to suspicions of financing personal interests. expenses by their companies.
leave your mark
Jean-Christophe Thiery of Bercegol du Moulin, his full name, succeeds Stéphanie Ferran, who joined Hachette Livre in 2017. This former HEC also had no experience in the publishing world, having developed her career at the consulting firms Pwc and then at AT Kearney, before joining Coca-Cola. She only remained in her position as deputy general manager for one year, a hectic period during which she had to face the distrust of the union organizations and, especially, the great crisis that broke out within Fayard.
It is in this publishing house weakened in March 2022 by the departure of Sophie from Closets, taking with her a large number of authors to Flammarion (Madrigall group), where the new shareholder wanted to leave his mark for the first time. To succeed him, his deputy Isabelle Saporta was appointed thanks to Nicolas Sarkozy, close to Vincent Bolloré and administrator of Hachette, the same person who precipitated Sophie’s departure from Closets…
Isabelle Saporta soon came across Vivendi’s strategy. He refused to allow the Fayard brand to become too politically marked by being linked to that of Mazarine, entrusted by the shareholder to Lise Boëll, editor of Eric Zemmour and Philippe de Villiers. Isabelle Saporta lost her confrontation with the management and was forced to leave the group. In June 2023, the management of Fayard finally passed into the hands of Lise Boëll, who took charge of a house greatly weakened by two years of uncertainty and a hemorrhage of authors.
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