European satellite TV provider M7 Group is understood to be looking to raise €110m (US$150m) in a new senior loan to fund a special dividend for its private equity owners.
The financing would be an expansion of the €355m (US$484m) facility that the…
European satellite TV provider M7 Group is understood to be looking to raise €110m (US$150m) in a new senior loan to fund a special dividend for its private equity owners.
The financing would be an expansion of the €355m (US$484m) facility that the Luxembourg-based company agreed back in September 2013. The majority of the proceeds from that deal were also used to provide a special dividend to M7’s sponsor owners, Providence Equity Partners and Airbridge Investments.
According to a SatelliteFinance source, the new debt takes the form of a six-year term loan C that will pay in the region of 425bp over Euribor.
Deutsche Bank is lead arranger on the transaction. It is unclear whether BNP Paribas, which worked alongside Deutsche on the initial financing, is involved this time round.
M7 Group did not respond to press enquiries
Established in October 2009 as the holding company for a group of European DTH providers that had been purchased by the private equity firms over the past few years, M7 mainly operates in Benelux and Central Europe.
It has made a series of bolt-on acquisitions to gain scale and most recently purchased the KabelKiosk assets from satellite operator Eutelsat. KabelKiosk is a platform of digital channels and interactive services for cable and IPTV networks in Germany.
As part of that transaction, M7 agreed to a long-term lease of multiple transponders on the Eutelsat 9A satellite.
