No-go for Altice-Media Capital deal
June 18, 2018
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
The planned acquisition of Prisa’s share in Portuguese media company Media Capital by Altice unit Meo will not take place.
In a statement sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission (CMVM), Prisa announced the “end of the purchase and sale contract entered into with Meo”, saying that this is a “consequence of not having met the deadline agreed by both parties on the last of the pending conditions, regarding the obtaining by Meo of the authorization by the Competition Authority”.
In July 2017, Altice announced its intention to buy 94.69 per cent of Media Capital for €440 million. After the Competition Authority rejected the eight remedies presented by Altice almost three weeks ago, the deadline for the conclusion of the deal expired on June 15th.
Altice expressed no interest in presenting new remedies to the Competition Authority nor asked Prisa to extend the deadline. A final decision by the regulator is expected on June 21st.
From the very start, the operation faced complaints by rival telecom operators, such as NOS and Vodafone Portugal, who claimed it would distort competition in the Portuguese market.
Media Capital reported a 5 per cent drop in revenues to €165.4 million in 2017, while profit increased 4 per cent to €19.7 million, the best results in a decade. Its assets include national commercial broadcaster TVI.