French DTH firm Canal+ and Polish media holding ITI Group are reviewing their 51% stake in Poland’s TVN pay-TV broadcaster, after being approached by “strategic and financial investors”.
SatelliteFinance understands they have hired BofA Merrill…
French DTH firm Canal+ and Polish media holding ITI Group are reviewing their 51% stake in Poland’s TVN pay-TV broadcaster, after being approached by “strategic and financial investors”.
SatelliteFinance understands they have hired BofA Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan to carry out the strategic review.
The companies declined to comment.
Canal+ holds 49% of TVN’s parent N-Vision, which it bought into in 2012 when it initially acquired 40% for €230m (US$295m). ITI owns the rest of N-Vision.
“Both the ITI Group and Canal+ Group remain under any scenario fully committed to the high performance TVN investment,” stated Canal+, which sees Poland as its second-largest market after France.
“Should the current strategic review not result in a transaction, the existing arrangements will remain in place.”
Canal+ also owns 51% of Polish DTH platform nc+, created in 2012 when it merged its pay-TV assets in the country with TVN, which holds a 32% stake. Pan-European cableco Liberty Global bought the remaining 17% share.
Canal+ said TVN will continue to own its 32% of nc+ regardless of the outcome of the review.
TVN was founded in 1995 and operates three free-to-air and seven thematic pay channels through satellite and cable operators. After N-Vision, its largest shareholders are financial services firms ING, Aviva and PZU with 7.66%, 7.17 and 6.23%, respectively.
In June the Polish pay-TV group completed the first stage of a PLN500m (US$151m) share buyback plan, paying a total PLN100m (US$30m) to repurchase 5,000,000 shares, of which around half were sold by minority investors.
Its management expects to spend PLN120m-PLN150m(US$36m-US$45m) on buying back another batch of shares towards the end of the year.
