Cofina/Media Capital: Shareholders to discuss TVI purchase today
The shareholders of Cofina and Media Capital will meet today at two extraordinary general board meetings to approve and discuss the sale of Media Capital by Spanish media giant Prisa which owns Portugal’s television channel TVI.
It means that the Spanish-owned Portuguese media company Media Capital is now back in Portuguese hands.
Following to a call to meeting, the shareholders will debate two points: “To discuss changes to articles 2 and 4 of the company’s statutes, authorising the Board to increase the company’s capital share and covering the structure of the board and administration. Cofina will undertake a capital increase of up to €85 million.
Also today, the share holders of Spanish media giant Prisa will meet in Madrid to approve the sale of Vertix which owns a 94.96% share in Media Capital, the company led by Paulo Fernandes.
On 30 December, the Portuguese competition authority (AdC) announced that it would not oppose the purchase of Media Capital by Cofina, the latter of which owns best-selling Portuguese tabloid newspaper Correia da Manhã and Correia da Manhã TV.
In the preliminary announcement to the launch of a Public Acquisition Offer, Cofina laid down a number of set requirements which would have to be met for the success of the takeover. These included the support of the competition authority AdC and media regulatory entity ERC, the approval by the Prisa board at a general assembly meeting as well as approving one or more capital share increases to finance the purchase of Media Capital.
On 23 December, Cofina announced that it has agreed a reduction in the purchase price with Prisa by €50 million on the original €255 million ticket (enterprise value) stated on 21 September.
In other words, the sale price is now €123.29 million which corresponds to an enterprise value (including the debt of TVI) of €205 million.
For the transaction, Prisa will receive €123.9 million, a 27% saving on the initial asking price, which means a loss to the owners of Spanish newspaper El País of €54.3 million in its accounts for the first nine months of the year.
The sale of Media Capital is also dependant on not taking on various debts accrued by Prisa.
The Cofina Group owns tabloid Correio da Manhã, football newspaper Record, rotating 24/hours news channel CM TV and business title Jornal de Negócios, current affairs magazine Sábado and other titles.
Media Capital has seven TV channels, TVI, the digital platform TVI Player, TVI 24, TVI Reality, TVI Ficção, TVI Internacional and TVI Africa. It also owns a number of radio stations including Comercial.
Cofina estimates that the purchase of the owners of TVI, Media Capital, will be completed in the first quarter of this year and will represent synergies of €46 million.