Billy, read this. After you finish, tell me, if your in Belguim, and your d-box doesn't work, Who do you call now???????????????????
biz.yahoo.com
Friday July 4 4:39 PM EDT
Canal Plus signs deal with Kirch
PARIS (Reuter) - French pay television group Canal Plus Friday signed a key asset swap deal with Kirch Gruppe of Germany and said it expected a profit on it of about three billion francs ($500 million).
Under the pact, Canal Plus is selling its 37.5 percent stake in Germany's Premiere to Kirch and buying the German group's 45 percent stake in Italy's Telepiu.
Finance director Laurent Perpere told Reuters the group expected to post a 1997 net profit of close to three billion francs, provided corporate taxation remained unchanged in France.
The group had previously expected only to break even in 1997 due to losses at the NetHold operations it acquired earlier this year. Financial analysts were expecting some 600 million francs ($102 million) in losses from Nethold in Canal Plus' 1997 results.
Premiere was started in 1991 as a three-way joint-venture of Canal Plus, Kirch and Bertelsmann AG . It has now reached break-even and has more than 1.4 million digital subscribers.
``Our stake in Premiere is valued at some $600 million or between 3.8 and 3.9 billion francs. That compares with accumulated losses of close to 600 million francs. We have invested some 600 million and six years later we get 3.9 billion,'' Perpere said.
Telepiu was founded in 1989 by Silvio Berlusconi and several partners. He was later joined by Kirch and NetHold, then controlled by Richemont SA and MCL-Multi Choice Ltd, which have since become large Canal Plus shareholders.
Canal Plus, after its merger with Nethold, had a 45 percent stake in Telepiu, which will rise to 90 percent. Berlusconi's Fininvest Spa has the remainder.
Canal Plus said it would sell a large part of the Kirch stake in Telepiu to Italian partners.
Canal Plus said that the deal allowed it to focus its investments in France, Spain, Italy and Scandinavia.
While Germany is Europe's biggest television market, Canal Plus said Italy was Europe's ``most promising pay-television market.''
Canal Plus had originally been a prime mover behind establishing digital television services in Germany, building on its technical know-how obtained in France, with Bertelsmann. Kirch had a rival project.
Last Wednesday, Kirch, Bertelsmann and Deutsche Telekom teamed up to provide digital television in Germany. Canal Plus bowed out.
``If we had stayed in Germany among Kirch, Bertelsmann and Deutsche Telekom, I don't think we would have had much to say,'' Perpere said. |
