MCA to Be the Buzz at Seagram Meeting : Investors: At the top of the questions list: Will super agent Michael Ovitz be taking the reins?

MONTREAL —  Management succession at MCA Inc. and the future of Seagram Co.’s stake in Time Warner Inc. will be the top issues at Seagram’s annual meeting today.

Foremost among the questions that investors and analysts hope Seagram President and Chief Executive Edgar Bronfman Jr. will address is whether talent agent Michael Ovitz will be appointed to head MCA.

Although Bronfman is known to want Ovitz to run the company, it might be hard to sell Seagram shareholders on the lucrative contract that would probably be required to bring him on board.

Sources told The Times on Tuesday that no announcement is expected today or even this week. One source said that even if a deal were struck, it probably wouldn’t be announced until the Seagram purchase of MCA closes sometime in June.

Ovitz, regarded by many as the most powerful man in Hollywood, is said to be weighing a number of options, including staying at Creative Artists Agency.

Seagram shareholders would also like to know whether current MCA Chairman Lew Wasserman and President Sidney Sheinberg will remain allied with MCA.

Sources confirmed a report in the New York Times on Tuesday that Wasserman has told Bronfman he will leave MCA if Ovitz is put in charge. Wasserman and Sheinberg reportedly are still bitter over Ovitz’s involvement in the April agreement to sell Matsushita Electric Industrial’s MCA division to Seagram.

Another uncertainty is whether Seagram is prepared to sell its 15% stake in Time Warner and what it would do with the more than $2 billion in gross proceeds such a sale would generate.

Many shareholders have been critical of Seagram’s decision in April to sell most of its 24% stake in DuPont Co. back to DuPont and to buy 80% of MCA from Matsushita for $5.7 billion.

Selloffs of Seagram stock shortly after the company announced the MCA transaction cut 18% from the share price. After plunging to $25.50 on the New York Stock Exchange, it recovered to just over $29. On Tuesday, Seagram stock was up 50 cents at $29.875.