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Vivendi’s Canal+, the French media giant has shown interest in assimilating Africa’s largest TV network, Multichoice to its establishment. The French company relayed on Tuesday, that it recently submitted an offer to acquire South African pay-TV company MultiChoice Group. Multichoice currently has offerings in 50 African countries.
As reported by the American news agency, Reuters, Canal+, is has shown interest in acquiring MultiChoice, with a proposal already submitted to this effect.
Multichoice also corroborated this information stating that it had received a letter from Vivendi’s Canal+ and would update shareholders should there be any further developments.
Canal+, a significant Multichoice stakeholder with a 31.67 percent ownership based on LSEG statistics, said that it will pay 105 rands ($5.61) in cash for each share, a 40% premium to MultiChoice’s closing share price on Wednesday.
“Shares in MultiChoice surged more in Thursday morning trade but were still far below the offer price indicating a lack of investor confidence that the deal would definitely go through. They were last up 23% at 92 rand,” Reuter’s report reads.
“Canal Plus said its current offer, worth 31.7 billion rand according to Reuters calculations.”
“For MultiChoice to continue to thrive in Africa it will require a strategy that enhances its scale as well as strengthened local and global expertise. Our potential offer, if successful, would be an important next step for MultiChoice to realize its full potential,” chairman and CEO of Canal+, Maxime Saada disclosed via a statement.
Multichoice which services 50 countries in Africa has been relentless in warding off competition from multinationals such as Netflix and Amazon. This is evident in MultiChoice’s campaign of investing in local content.
The CEO and Chairman of Canal+ noted that this acquisition would give Multichoice the resources to double down on local content investment.
“As part of MultiChoice’s efforts to fight off competition, it partnered last year with Comcast’s (CMCSA.O), opens new tab NBCUniversal and Sky to revamp MultiChoice’s existing Showmax streaming service, which now offers LIVE Premier League content,” Reuter’s report reads.
Canal+ disclosed that it intends to aggressively list in response to parent firm Vivendi’s intentions to divide into four entities, with the ultimate goal of listing in South Africa.
