Poland’s ITI Group has reacted to press speculation by announcing that, along with its financial advisors J.P. Morgan and Nomura, it is “reviewing its strategic options” on the controlling (56%) stake it holds in TVN. The sale of TVN, whose interests include 10 TV channels and the DTH platform n, would attract a number of leading international media groups keen on entering the lucrative Polish market.
They are likely to include Time Warner (CME, in which it holds a stake, helped launched TVN in the 1990s before exiting the market); Bertelsmann (RTL Group); Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Entertainment Group (which formerly was a shareholder in TV Puls before also exiting the Polish market); and Modern Times Group.
Another, though possibly less likely, candidate could be Vivendi, which already owns the DTH platform Cyfra+ in Poland.
Commenting on any proposed sale, the local business publication Parkiet said that TVN could be valued at up to PLN6.8 billion (€1.72 billion), or PLN1.5 billion more than the figure quoted yesterday (July 7) on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
