French communications conglomerate Vivendi has confirmed that it has made an offer to buy video website Dailymotion from French incumbent Orange.
German media group Axel Springer has denied a report in Les Echos that it too had made an offer, tweeting…
French communications conglomerate Vivendi has confirmed that it has made an offer to buy video website Dailymotion from French incumbent Orange.
German media group Axel Springer has denied a report in Les Echos that it too had made an offer, tweeting that it had “no intention” of buying Dailymotion and that it has “not submitted an offer”.
Vivendi’s offer was presented and discussed by Orange at a special board meeting at 3pm French time today. Orange announced at 6pm that it was in exclusive talks with Vivendi, which offered €250m for 80% of the company, giving it an enterprise value of €265m. Orange will retain the remaining 20%.
While Vivendi has not released the specifics of its offer, Le Monde reported that it was prepared to offer €250m for “almost all” of the platform.
Orange is expected to give French holding company Fimalac time to make an offer, according to AFP. Fimalac made its first digital investments in 2013, when it acquired French online media specialist Webedia and online cinema information service Allocine. Orange declined to comment on Fimalac.
The telco, for its part, said it is not in exclusive talks with any party, and that it is not against having a strategic partner to help develop Dailymotion.
Another German media group, Bertelsmann, which was last week reported to be among the potential buyers of Dailymotion, is understood not to be interested.
Yesterday, Hong Kong-based telco PCCW said that it had dropped its own bid for a 49% stake, following last week’s declaration by French economy and industry minister Emmanuel Macron that he would prefer that Dailymotion remain in European hands. Orange, which is 24.9% owned by the French state, had previously been in exclusive talks with PCCW.
Dailymotion, which represents some 0.18% of the total revenue of Orange, has an EBITDA of around €70m.
