Louis Hachette Group S.A. (LHG) is a French conglomerate specialising in publishing, travel retail and media, with its origins in the Hachette bookshop founded in 1826. Louis Hachette Group is controlled by French businessman Vincent Bolloré and his family.
Formed from the spin-off of Vivendi in December 2024, the new independent entity holds 65.73% of the Lagardère group (Hachette Livre, Larousse, Fayard, Relay, Le Journal du dimanche, Europe 1, etc.) as well as 86.42% of the French press group Prisma Media (Voici, Femme Actuelle, Geo (France), Télé-Loisirs, Capital, etc.).
France's leading publisher since 2004 and the world's 6th largest publishing group (the world's third-largest consumer publishing group, excluding professional publishing), Louis Hachette Group has its origins in the Hachette publishing group, founded by Louis Hachette in 1826 after the purchase of the Parisian bookshop Brédif.
History In December 2023, Vivendi announced that it was carrying out a feasibility study into a plan to split its activities into 4 entities: Canal+, Havas, a publishing and distribution company (combining Lagardère and Prisma Media), and an investment company.
On 29 October 2024, the new Louis Hachette Group was created as a publishing and distribution company, leaving Vivendi as an investment company. On 30 October 2024, Vivendi and the new Louis Hachette Group entity entered into a partial demerger agreement, enabling LHG to hold a 66.53% stake in Lagardère and a 100% stake in Prisma Media in the event of a favourable vote by Vivendi shareholders.
The company started trading at Euronext Paris on 16 December 2024, the shares were trading at 1.42 euros on that day, up 18% on the opening price.
In May 2026, major publishers including Hachette sued Meta Platforms, alleging that Meta used their books and journal articles, without their permission, to train Llama.
Activities The activities of Louis Hachette Group are carried out by two main entities:
Lagardère SA Lagardère Publishing Hachette Livre (publishing) Hachette Book Group (ex-Time Warner Book Group) Hachette Australia Little, Brown and Company Orion Publishing Group Bounty Books Conran Octopus Cassell Illustrated etc. Armand Colin Grasset Hatier Fayard JC Lattès Calmann-Levy Dunod Chambers Harrap etc. Lagardère Travel Retail (commercial retail in airports) Relay Paradies Lagardère Aelia etc. Lagardère News (media) Le Journal du dimanche and its supplements Le JDNews and Le JDMag and the Elle licence Lagardère Radio Europe 1 Europe 2 and RFM Lagardère Live Entertainment (entertainment) Casino de Paris, Arkéa Arena and Folies Bergère. (sports club) Prisma Media Femme actuelle Télé-Loisirs Prima Voici Geo (France) Ça m'Intéresse National Geographic (France) Neon Capital Harvard Business Review France Simone
Shareholders At 5 May 2026: Bolloré SE31 %Arnaud Lagardère8.7 %Other shareholders60.3 %
Governance Management Jean-Christophe Thiery: Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Louis Hachette Group
Grégoire Castaing: Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Louis Hachette Group
Board of directors Jean-Christophe Thiery: Chairman of the Board of Directors
Arnaud Lagardère: Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors
Yannick Bolloré: director
Sophie Chassat: independent director
Maud Fontenoy: independent director
Arnaud de Puyfontaine: director
References
See also
Lagardère group Hachette Livre Arnaud Lagardère
External links
Lagardère