Turkey’s second largest media company ATV-Sabah has been purchased by the unlisted Calik Group for the minimum $1.1 billion (€750m) after the other bidders dropped out of the auction process.
The transaction still has to be approved by the board of the Savings Deposits and Insurance Fund, which seized the assets in April claiming “irregularities”, and bringing together the popular commercial channel ATV with the newspaper Sabah
It had been feared that the auction might collapse altogether after two groups led by RTL and Carlyle Group withdrew from bidding at the last minute. Several foreign companies, including CME, News Corp. and Greece’s Antenna, were previously believed to be interested in buying into Sabah-ATV.