Poland’s leading DTH platform Cyfrowy Polsat is to buy its parent company Telewizja Polsat from its current owners Zygmunt Solorz-Zak and Heronim Ruta for PLN3.75 billion (€944.7 million). It will pay PLN2.6 billion (69.3%) of the fee in cash and the remainder in shares in Cyfrowy Polsat.
The acquisition should be completed by March 2011 and greatly strengthen Cyfrowy Polsat’s position in the Polish TV marketplace. In the year ending June 30, 2010 Cyfrowy Polsat’s and Telewizja Polsat’s combined revenues amounted to PLN2.4 billion, of which PLN1.315 billion came from subscriptions and PLN910 million from advertising.
The surprise news has come as Cyfrowy Polsat has strengthened its position as the leading DTH platform in Poland, ending the third quarter with 3,277,936 subscribers, or 361,000 more than a year earlier. The number receiving its Family premium package stood at 2,596,000, up 253,000 year-on-year, while 682,000, or 108,000 more than a year earlier, opted for its Mini/Mini Pax packages.
ARPU for the Family package in Q3 was PLN41.9, up 4% year-on-year, and for the Mini package stood at PLN11.1, or 19% more than a year earlier. However, the churn rate in the first nine months of 2010 was – at 10.2% – higher than the 8.0% recorded in the same period last year.
Cyfrowy Polsat also ended Q3 with 60,000 MVNO users, 90% of whom were post-paid, along with 15,000 internet customers. Although there was a year-on-year increase in both the company’s revenues and EBITDA in Q3 – PLN366 million (+16%) and PLN 104 million (+25%) respectively – its net income fell by 14% to PLN68 million over the same period.
