French media has never been faster moving, or more interesting, since the heady days of Jean-Marie Messier and his attempt to be ‘master of the world’. April 10th evening saw news break that French investment and industrial group Bollore had picked up another 2.51 per cent of media giant Vivendi, and paying over €800 million […]
Following on the press and financial speculation French media giant Vivendi attempted to cool the rumour-mill surrounding its potential acquisition of Sky’s three European pay-TV operations. A Vivendi senior spokesman “vehemently” denied that they had any plan to acquire Sky and Arnaud de Puyfontaine, chairman of Vivendi’s management board, stressed there was no bid. Sky […]
Abertis is to sell the recently-rebranded Cellnex (the former Abertis Telecom) with the forthcoming IPO with 55 per cent of the company on offer. The value of the company is estimated to be between €2.3 billion and €2.8 billion, with Abertis hoping to raise up to €1.7 billion for the sale to institutional investors only. […]
French media giant Vivendi is said to be considering a bid to acquire all of the Sky-branded European pay-TV broadcasters. Reuters have reported ‘early stage discussions’ and analysts at investment bank Exane BNPO-Paribas state that the rumour has been bouncing around for a few weeks. Exane has run some numbers and – assuming a 25 […]
Telefonica is reportedly in talks for Al Jazeera to take a significant stake in Canal Plus to ease regulatory concerns from the CNMC and give green light to Telefonica’s takeover of the Spanish pay-TV platform. In May, Telefonica agreed to purchase the 56 per cent stake in Digital+ owned by Prisa for €750 million before […]
The news that Vivendi might be seeking to buy the trio of Sky Europe broadcasters has prompted considerable activity on the London stock market in Sky shares. Sky’s share price rocketed from Tuesday’s closing price of £10.23 to an April 8th morning ‘high’ of £10.63 (and a new 12-month ‘high’) before slipping back after profit […]
French media giant Vivendi has tabled an offer for Orange’s video-streaming site Dailymotion, according to reports, pledging to develop the French start-up globally while making sure it stays under full French control. Vivendi, which has been keen on Dailymotion for some time, is said to have last week made an offer to buy a controlling […]
Reports say ITV is nearing a deal worth $950 million for the TV division of The Weinstein Company (TWC), the production studio set up by film producers the Weinstein brothers. An initial payment for TWC’s TV arm would total between $300 million and $400 million, the reports suggest, with bonuses and payouts potentially tripling the […]
Akamai Technologies has acquired Octoshape in a cash transaction. Octoshape’s services are designed to help optimise the quality of video streams for OTT content and to enable IPTV solutions. “As more video gets consumed over the Internet, and on devices that can display higher-quality resolution, it is important for us to develop new ways to […]
TeleDiffusion de France (TDF), which operates the nation’s transmission media and broadcasting services, has completed the sale of its assets to a consortium comprising Brookfield Infrastructure, PSP Investments, APG Asset Mgt and Arcus Infrastructure. Sale price is “approximately €3.6 billion” says a company statement. Included in the sale are about 6,690 multi-purpose towers and 5,000 […]