Vivendi Could Complicate Comcast's NBC Universal Bid

Vivendi has less than a month to decide if it wants to give up its 20 percent stake in NBC Universal, thereby enabling General Electric to sell nearly half of its entertainment division to Comcast, but the French media company's CFO Philippe Capron has made it known that he won't make it easy.

"We are not interested in staying onboard a new GE-Comcast ownership of NBCU, so, yes, we would exit,” Bloomberg's Paul Tobin quotes Capron saying at a Morgan Stanley conference in Barcelona.

But don't think that means au revoir, complètement. Capron continued, "This year the situation is a bit more complex. We are not forced to do anything. We could just also say no."

When asked if price was a sticking point in Vivendi's exit negotiations with GE, Capron told Reuters' Dominique Vidalon and Georgina Prodhan, "It often is."

This cannot be comforting to Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, who probably fears the biggest deal in his family's company's existence slipping away unless he can appease the French, who seem to be adopting and translating Joe Pesci's colorful mantra from Goodfellas right about now: Baise vous me payez!

In 2004, Comcast tried to buy the Walt Disney Company in a hostile takeover bid that failed. At the time, Roberts said in a company release, "It has become clear that there is no interest on the part of Disney's management and board in putting Comcast and Disney together." Someone in Comcast's PR department must be dreading the drafting of another bland release like that one about NBC Universal.