Four bidders met the June 23 deadline for proposals to buy all or part of Vivendi Universal's entertainment assets.


Given that Vivendi Universal issued prospectuses of financial information for Vivendi Universal Entertainment (VUE) to six would-be acquisitors, the shortlist holds no major surprises.


Oil billionaire Marvin Davis, who previously offered $15bn, has now made a formal offer. So too has Edgar Bronfman Jr, the former Seagram chief executive, reportedly in conjunction with Cablevision. They are both understood to have made offers for the entire VUE operation, including music.


MGM and John Malone's Liberty Media are understood to have bid for the film and TV businesses alone.


Coming in after the deadline, General Electric (GE) submitted a "letter of interest" concerning the film and TV assets. It is understood that Vivendi Universal was particularly interested in soliciting a bid from the wealthy GE, which already owns the NBC network.


The only name absent from the line up was the world's largest media conglomerate, Viacom, which announced over the weekend that it would possibly throw its hat into the ring at a later time but would not meet the deadline. This puts a temporary end to rumours that Redstone would hook up with Liberty Media to make a combined play for the assets. It has said it is only interested in the cable networks.


Although Vivendi would not comment on the bids, they are expected to reach upwards of $10bn for VUE, which includes the film studios, television channels and theme parks. Including Universal Music Group the numbers could rise as high as $20bn.


Interestingly, Vivendi has never made a public statement about selling the music interests but some analysts feel that those bids will be more highly regarded. With the global music business in decline, Vivendi may be happy to unload the world leader.


Vivendi will study the offers in the next week and may have a short list compiled on or around its June 30 board meeting. But given that Vivendi has already been successful in selling off assets in order to reduce debt and has restructured much of its remaining debt, a person close to the dealings pointed out, "This is not a firesale."