TVI sale deal between Prisa and Altice off

 In News

Prisa, the Spanish media company that owns Portugal’s Media Capital has called off a deal to sell Portuguese TV station TVI to Altice at the last moment.

The media group will continue in the hands of the Spanish one year after the announcement that Media Capital would be sold to Altice.

The sale process had until a deadline of 15 June to advance. However, Prisa has just cancelled the contract in the light of Media Capital’s positive results in 2017.

Altice and Prisa had set the 15 June deadline to complete the purchase deal of 94.69% of Media Capital.

According to the Spanish newspaper El Confidencial, the initial agreement foresaw Altice paying €440 million to Prisa but in the meantime there was an “adjustment in price” for reasons that were not outlined in the newspaper to €321 million.

Prisa is currently undergoing a group financial restructuring and successfully called a capital increase to fund that restructuring plan which included debt rescheduling.

The success of the capital increase made the Media Capital selloff less necessary and Prisa decided to hold onto an asset that was profitable and paying dividends. 

Media Capital, the holding which controls TVI, closed the 1st quarter of 2018 with €1.94 million profit — up 1% on the same period in 2017.

Revenues from advertising enjoyed their largest increase in two years.  Overall revenues grew 4% for TVI while 2017 closed with profits of €1.91 million paying just €140,000 in taxes on income following a tax adjustment with the Portuguese tax authorities resulting in a tax refund. This year, the company paid a €743,000 tax bill.