Vivendi Universal, the French media and telecoms group, has hired SG and Alfred Berg to advise on the sale of Canal+ Television, its Nordic pay-television company, to two private equity firms for €70m ($78m).

Usually, Vivendi prefers to use its internal M&A department and supplement it with external advisers. However, its own executives were heavily involved in the $14bn sale of Vivendi Universal Entertainment to NBC. A source close to the deal said: "Vivendi was doing a number of deals at the same time and therefore their internal resources were more stretched than usual."