Vivendi may shake down Activision for a special $3B dividend

French multimedia conglomerate Vivendi needs cash to ease its debts and reassure its stock holders. Those forces might compel it to take a special one-time dividend out of publisher Activision, which Vivendi owns 61 percent of, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Vivendi’s board will discuss the move at a meeting today, where it will propose a $3 billion dividend that Activision would have to pay out to all its shareholders, WSJ claims. That would net Vivendi around $2 billion and leave Activision with about $1 billion in cash on hand. Vivendi currently has around $17 billion in net debt.