Morning Wire: The "V" in Vivendi could be for "VIK"

Financier Alexander Vik is playing Carl Icahn but a nicer version. The Financier is look to take control of the French media giant and has offered the board a reported $42 a share, or just under $50 billion for the whole company but of course for any board these days, that price was shot down with a 12 gage. A few months ago, Icahn had to accept defeat in his nearly yearlong campaign to take over Time Warner. The flaw in his plan: failing to realize that Time Warner belongs to the most exclusive and powerful corporate club on earth, the conglomerate media, and that an attack on one is invariably perceived by the other club members as a threat to them all, with the result that hostile bids always fail. Now Vik is trying the same sort of thing, though in a way that calls to mind Pablo Picasso's gripe about the poseurs of the art world: "You do something, then somebody else comes along and does it pretty." read....