Canal+ Group and M7 Group have decided to exercise their call option on the 30% remaining shares of SPI International and therefore to acquire full ownership of the company.
As of April 12, SPI International’s leadership team and founders Berk Uziyel and Loni Farhi have stepped down from their roles in the company, with Erwan Luherne and Jeroen Bergman taking over their respective responsibilities and roles.
Luherne, director of business integration for Canal+ International, and Bergman, board member of M7 Group responsible for content and business development, will keep working closely with Canal+ Group and M7 Group.
Luherne, appointed MD of SPI International, has spent more than 18 years within the Canal+ Group in numerous positions related to the development of the group’s activities internationally (Africa and Asia in particular). He has been previously CEO of Canal+ Myanmar, director of marketing and commercial development for Canal+ International, director of commercial development Canal+ entity in Vietnam.
Bergman, now board member of M7 Group responsible for content and business development, has had a long-standing career in the media and telco industry, including 20 years at Liberty Global, where he was responsible for all programming and content acquisition. Before Liberty he was commercial director for the Dutch cable company Casema (currently Ziggo). Since 2019 hen was managing the Film1 and Filmbox business in the Netherlands for SPI International.
Commenting on the development, Hans Troelstra, CEO of M7 Group, said: “SPI International has a long history of providing top-quality content to audiences around the world, and we are eager to take the company to a new stage of its development. Both Erwan and Jeroen have strong track records in the business so I have great confidence they will continue to bring great success to SPI”.
Luherne and Bergman added: “We are committed to build on the company’s strong foundations and leverage the Canal+ Group collective expertise to continue providing engaging and relevant content to viewers”.
