Vivendi Group, France

Vivendi SA is a French media multinational conglomerate, one of the Fortune 500 companies, with businesses in music, cinema, television, publishing, telecommunications, Internet, video games, construction and industry, water, transportation, energy, the environment, and waste management. Founded on December 14, 1853, by decree of Napoleon III, the group was initially known as General Water Company and has been operating in the water industry for more than a hundred years; it was only in 1980 that the group began to diversify its activities.