Ronaldo to buy shareholding in Cofina

Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo has made a bid to be a key shareholder in the Portuguese media group Cofina which owns some of the country’s best selling news titles such as tabloid Correio da Manhã, business daily Jornal de Negócios and CMTV.

It comes after a Management Buyout (MBO) was announced last month to save the independence and editorial integrity of the group which is led by Octávio Ribeiro and Luís Santana. It was the latter who confirmed that the captain of Portugal’s squad would be one of the investors in the operation.
“Counting on Cristiano Ronaldo, the best football player ever, an exceptional player hat shares our values of discipline, high standards, hard work, and resilience as an investor naturally makes us very pleased for the team that is developing the MBO at Cofina Media which will be presented to shareholders when the time is right”, said the CEO of Cofina.
Cofina Media confirmed on Friday that it had received a binding offer and a revised binding offer respectively for the acquisition of the entire capital, subscribed by the administrators of the company, Ana Dias and Luís Santana and ex-director of Correio da Manhã, and several other non-identified investors.
The offer is based on a calculated Enterprise Value of €75 million, subject to conditions and adjustments.
At the present time Cofina is in a preliminary phase of evaluating the proposal and price offered, having informed the interested parties that the five days given to analyse the offer are insufficient for Cofina to reach a decision.
In 2022 Cofina SGPS, the holding that controls 100% of Cofina Media, posted profits of €10.5 million, an operational EBITDA of €13.6 million, and an EBITDA of €8.9 million. Cofina’s shares went up by 39% on the back of the news.