Plans by French DTH firm Canal+ to acquire 40% of Polish pay-TV group TVN’s parent company have been given the regulatory green light.
Canal+ acquired a stake in the company, called N-Vision, for €230m (US$300m) from Polish investment firm ITI…
Plans by French DTH firm Canal+ to acquire 40% of Polish pay-TV group TVN’s parent company have been given the regulatory green light.
Canal+ acquired a stake in the company, called N-Vision, for €230m (US$300m) from Polish investment firm ITI Group, which holds the remaining share with a put option to sell a further 9%.
ITI was advised by JP Morgan and Nomura, while Canal+, which is part of French media conglomerate Vivendi, hired Barclays and BofA Merrill Lynch.
As well as approving this transaction, Polish competition watchdog UOKiK gave the go-ahead for Canal+ and TVN to merge their pay-TV platforms in Poland, Cyfra+ and n, respectively.
Under this deal, Canal+ will take a 51% stake in the combined venture and TV N will hold a 32% share. UPC, the cable company controlled by US-based Liberty Global, will acquire the remaining 17% share.
A combined n/Cyfra+ entity is expected to have three million subscribers by 2015, when it is estimated to generate EBITDA in excess of PLN550m (US$160m). This would make it the second-largest satellite TV operator in Poland, after Cyfrowy Polsat.
However, UOKiK ruled that, even though the transaction will dramatically affect the Polish DTH landscape, the country’s pay-TV sector will not suffer from a significant restriction in competition, because “participants of the transaction will have to compete with other entities”.
