Consolidation drove the media sector last week. Vivendi acquired the unlisted M7 Group, Mediaset bought into ProSieben and Axel Springer could be taken private. The South African Naspers Group detailed the planned listing of its consumer internet group in Amsterdam from 17 July. The Telecompaper Stock Index Global Consumer Media ended the week down 2.3 percent, slightly better than the S&P 500's loss of 2.6 percent. We recorded the largest gain for Axel Springer (+20% for the week) and the biggest loss for comScore (-11%).
European deals
Vivendi (+2.2%), through its Canal+ television unit, acquired the unlisted M7 Group, with activities across Europe. M7 is a television aggregator selling both retail and wholesale on satellite, OTT and other platforms.
Mediaset (+0.2%) bought a 10 percent stake in the German broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 (-1.5%), which is preparing an OTT service with Discovery. It was termed a 'friendly' deal and involved around EUR 330 million. At the same time, it could be scaring off other investors taking an interest in ProSieben. Mediaset and ProSieben denied rumours of planning a new holding to control both companies.
Also in Germany, the Axel Springer group attracted the attention of KKR, which could lead to an offer whereby the company's largest shareholders, Friede Springer and CEO Mathias Doepfner, would stay on board with their combined 45 percent stake.
European consolidation
The Mediaset arrangement with ProSieben fits in a bigger picture of industry consolidation, which for some time has been leading to the formation of several more or less pan-European groups. Ultimately, they are controlled by the Bertelsmann, Berlusconi and Bollore families.
- Bertelsmann (unlisted) controls RTL (+11%), with operations in Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Hungary, Croatia (and more). It has stakes in M6 (unchanged) in France and Atresmedia (unchanged) in Spain.
- The Berlusconi family controls Mediaset in Italy, with Vivendi (controlled by the Bollore family) having a 30 percent stake in Mediaset. Mediaset has stakes in Mediaset Spain (-0.2%) and now ProSiebenSat.1 Media in Germany.
- The Bollore family controls Vivendi, which has an international footprint through Canal+, the M7 Group, Dailymotion and the Mediaset stake (and more, such as Universal Music and Gameloft).
The remaining standalone national commercial broadcasters include ITV (-0.7%) in the UK, which counts Liberty Global among it shareholders, and TF1 (-3.1%) in France, controlled by Bouygues (-1.8%).
More deals
In other M&A news:
- Zattoo (unlisted), the OTT TV platform controlled by Tamedia (-1.4%), took over the Spielfilm TV customer base from the Burda Media group.
- Sony (-2.0%) was rumoured to be looking at Zee Entertainment (-4.9%).
- Meredith (-5.4%) sold its Sports Illustrated subsidiary to Authentic Brands Group (unlisted).
- Snap (+2.9%) sold its Placed unit to Foursquare (unlisted).
Naspers listing
Naspers provided details for investors of the planned listing of its consumer internet shareholdings, still generically referred to as NewCo. With its Amsterdam listing, from 17 July, this new company will be among Europe's largest listed internet companies. It will contain all of Naspers' non-South African businesses in the online classifieds, payments and fintech, food delivery, e-commerce, travel, education and social and internet platforms sectors. The brands include Mail.ru, OLX, Avito, Letgo, PayU, Tencent, iFood, Swiggy, DeliveryHero, Udemy, eMAG and MakeMyTrip. Of note is in particular the 31 percent Tencent stake.
Current Naspers shareholders will be given a choice of receiving NewCo shares or additional Naspers shares. After the IPO, Napsers will hold at least 73 percent of the NewCo shares.
Alphabet, Facebook, Disney
To round off, the main news on our index's three largest holdings:
- Alphabet: the company could be facing a new antitrust investigation, possibly against the core search and advertising activities.
- Facebook: a privacy-related case is moving forward at the European Court of Justice. It concerns the transfer of personal data, originating in Europe, to servers in the US.
- Walt Disney: opened the long awaited Star Wars section at Disneyland, the culmination of one of the company's largest acquisitions.
