Telia Company has announced that the European Commission has approved its acquisition of Bonnier Broadcasting, including TV4, MTV and C More. The commission said this is conditional on full compliance with a commitments package offered by Telia to ensure competition on the Nordic broadcasting market. The commitments will be applicable in Finland and Sweden for a duration of ten years.
Among other things, Telia has undertaken to license Bonnier Broadcasting's free-to-air and basic pay-TV channels, and its and premium sports channels, to TV distributors in Sweden and Finland on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. This includes ancillary rights via which TV distributors can, for instance, offer customers the option to stream the Telia/Bonnier channels contained in their TV subscription online, and network personal video recorder rights.
Telia will license standalone OTT rights to one other market player in Sweden and Finland. It will not limit access to its own streaming services and applications over the internet, namely AVoD and SVoD, for end-users.
It will sell advertising space on fair terms to mobile telecoms and fixed internet providers as well as TV distributors in Sweden and Finland. It will license the Liiga ice hockey channel package on fair terms to TV distributors in Finland.
The commission said the merged entity will protect confidential information concerning rival TV broadcasters, distributors and telecom providers by maintaining information barriers between the its wholesale and retail businesses.
The acquisition is expected to generate synergies from 2020, with a full run-rate of SEK 600 million in 2022. The integration of Bonnier Broadcasting, with its roughly 1,200 employees in Sweden, Finland and Denmark, will begin when the transaction is expected to close on 02 December.
TV4, C More and MTV will be part of Telia Company's newly established business area for media. Casten Almqvist, who is currently CEO of Bonnier Broadcasting, will become responsible for the new business area which will also include Telia Company's current media operations.
Telia Company announced the acquisition of Bonnier Broadcasting on 20 July 2018 for SEK 9.2 billion on a cash and debt-free basis, equivalent then to an EV/EBIT multiple of 15.3 times excluding synergies. Based on the twelve months to 31 August 2019, the EV/EBITA multiple was 8.4 times.
