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New merger for Murdoch? There’s another multibillion-dollar deal on the cards involving the key Murdoch family company, 21st Century Fox. Hot on the heels of a possible $US10 billion reorganisation of its European satellite pay TV businesses, Fox is looking at merging its TV production arm, Shine, with industry giant Endemol, plus third production house Core Media, to produce a global production business. Endemol is already the No. 1 production company worldwide, and this move, if completed, would create a giant, rivalling or overshadowing some of the TV production arms of the big American networks.
Fox revealed the move in a statement in New York last night, saying it had started talks with
private equity group Apollo Global Management (which also owns a big stake in Nine Entertainment Company in Australia). Subsequent reports say that Fox has in fact struck a preliminary merger deal with Apollo and all that remains is to create a joint venture (Apollo will have a majority stake) worth US$2 billion or more, according to the
Financial Times. The move would take Shine off Fox’s balance sheet and separate it from the Murdoch empire. According to media surveys, Endermol had annual sales of US$1.7 billion in 2013, and Shine’s revenue was around US$900 million.
Endemol came to prominence a decade ago with
Big Brother and was originally sold by founder John de Mol for 5.5 billion euros in 2000. It was then sold in 2007 for 3.4 billion euros to Goldman Sachs and Mediaset, the group controlled by former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Apollo financed much of that deal and took control of the company because Endemol could not meet its debts; Apollo was the senior lender to Endemol and took control of the company by using its debt. Endermol and Shine would be the major production houses in the joint venture. Core Media is much, much smaller. From Apollo’s point of view it is a chance to get rid of the hard-to-sell TV businesses at a time when there are buyers driving up values (and overpaying). —
Glenn Dyer
http://www.crikey.com.au/2014/05/16...c-shine-merger-wheat-st/?wpmp_switcher=mobile