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Investment house Penta is exiting its stake in Slovak publisher Petit Press after six years. New shareholders include Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF), two Petit Press executives and a former news portal owner. First Slovak Investment Group (Prvá Slovenská Investicná Skupina - PSIS) remains majority stakeholder.
Petit Press publishes daily SME and regional daily Korzar and other regional newspapers under the My Noviny brand. The English-language Slovak Spectator is jointly published by Petit Press and the original founders of The Rock publishing house. (See more about media in Slovakia here)
Penta Investments continues to own Slovak general interest publisher News and Media Holding, mostly acquired in 2014, including business magazine Trend. More recently it acquired Hungarian-language daily Uj Szo in a swap with Petit Press. With Swiss-German publisher Ringier Axel Springer it jointly operates a classified ads portal in Slovakia. Penta is principal owner of Czech publisher Vltava Labe Media, acquired in 2015 from German publisher Verlagsgruppe Passau.
“We believe that the position of Petit Press as a leader in the field of digital news in Slovakia can be further developed because the company continues to build its business based on the values of quality journalism,” said MDIF chief executive Harlan Mandel in a statement (April 22). “We look forward to working with all current shareholders, including the majority shareholder PSIS, who has been a tireless supporter of the editorial quality of Petit Press since the beginning.” (See full MDIF statement here)
"Our work at Petit Press was a valuable experience for us,” said Penta Investments partner Marian Slivovic, quoted by Czech news agency CTK (April 22), “especially from the point of view of the functioning of the digital subscription, which we began to develop intensively in our Czech publishing house Vltava Labe Media.” He also suggested it was an “attractive” offer that “resolved” a difference in development strategy.
The grudge match between Vincent Balloré (Vivendi) and the Berlusconi family (Mediaset) may have dragged out long enough. A “protracted dispute,” said Reuters (April 20). A Milan Tribunal dismissed the Mediaset claim for €3 billion but ordered Vivendi to pay Mediaset €1.7 million to compensate for “unfulfilled preliminary obligations.” Italian business portal Affaritaliai (April 20) referred it as a “cold shower” for Mediaset.
All of this dates back to 2016 when Vivendi struck an agreement to acquire Mediaset’s pay-TV subsidiary then ran for cover after looking at the books. Mediaset howled that this was quite unfair and filed a lawsuit for breach of contract. In the meantime Vivendi took a 28.8% stake in Mediaset citing a desire to create a bigger competitor for Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. The Milan Tribunal also ruled that Vivendi’s argument for backing out of the deal was “legitimate.” (See more about Mediaset here) (See more about Vivendi here)
Mediaset’s compensation claim, apparently, prevented the two side from reaching an out-of-court settlement earlier, which the court strongly suggested. Mediaset still wants the money and will appeal. Vivendi said it is “satisfied.” A criminal case remains still but a related investigation stalled months ago and the courts have not called for submissions from attorneys.
Some media concerns are blessed with impeccable timing. Subscription video on demand (SVoD) provider Netflix is one. As pandemic lockdowns changed behaviors - not to forget generalized anxiety over public spaces - streaming video services became the antidote. At least, that has been the conventional wisdom.
First quarter subscriber data, released this week, showed Netflix attracting fewer new sign-ups than expected, just short of four million rather than six. Stock traders, momentarily distracted from cryptocurrencies, pushed the sell button. There are 208 million Netflix subscribers, up 14% year on year. (See more about streaming media here)
In their statement (April 20) Netflix executives observed that there is a lot of competition out there in streaming video land and their Q1 offerings were rather light due to coronavirus issues with producers. Their Q2 forecast is for just one million new subscribers. (See more about Media and the Virus here)
A week earlier French consultancy BearingPoint released a study on subscriptions generally warning of impending consumer fatigue. The average French household, so they say, has four video subscriptions, two audio/music subscriptions and three gaming subscriptions, not to forget two or more mobile phones. That doesn’t leave much room for newspaper subscriptions. French consumers, they observed, are paying for a “mood boost,” citing the uptake in food delivery services.
Companies frequently bond for common purpose. Obviously, it’s money that matters, to paraphrase an old song. The joint venture is a well-oiled mechanism. Investors love them as much as break-ups. Sometimes they lead to the same place.
Last December US-based Spanish-language broadcaster Univision went through another round of refinancing. Private equity firms Searchlight Capital Partners and ForgeLight took a 64% stake with Mexican broadcaster Grupo Televisa continuing to hold the remaining 36%. ForgeLight founder and former Viacom chief financial officer Wade Davis then became the Univision chief executive. All of this had been in the mix for several months.
This led to a joint venture taking the TV production capacity of Grupo Televisia plus certain IP and sports rights holdings into a new version of Univision - Televisa-Univision - announced last week (April 13). The Azcárraga family, principal owners of Grupo Televiza, will retain the Mexican broadcasting licenses and a news production operation for them. Plus they get a huge payday; US$3 billion. (See more about private equity here)
Spanish broadcast market watchers were quick to cast the deal as chasing the streaming TV market. The combined Spanish-speaking market is about 600 million worldwide. In the US 70% of Spanish-speakers already subscribe to a VOD service. In Mexico it’s 10%. They like, understandably, native productions. “Audiences do not like to see subtitled movies,” noted business daily El Financiero (April 16), which also faulted a lack of Spanish-language content from Netflix, which has a 74,6% market share in Mexico, and Amazon Prime Video. (See more about streaming media here)
Not to be forgotten, though, is pure high finance. Private equity firms and venture funds always turn to OPM - other people’s money. Searchlight Capital and ForgeLight tapped into huge Japanese investment conglomerate SoftBank, US investment bank The Raine Group, a long time Softbank advisor, and Google. President of Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) “celebrated” the foreign investment, noted Milenio (April 14), adding that the companies will be paying “several billions” in taxes.
When the potential upending of the notorious hedge fund Alden Global Capital bid to completely takeover US publisher Tribune Publishing by two very wealthy individuals certain media watchers could not contain their glee. Alex Shepard in left-leaning The New Republic (April 6) wrote that the publishing world continues to swing from “cost-slashing private equity firms and mercurial billionaires who promise to act as stewards.” A mere ten days later the pendulum swung again.
Very wealthy billionaire philanthropist Hansjörg Wyss seems to have removed his money from a partnership with hotel owner Stewart Bainum, first reported the New York Times (April 16), citing sources who were not Herr Wyss, Mr. Bainum or the Tribune. Obviously, that leaves Alden Global. The unnamed NYT sources said Swiss citizen Herr Wyss, who lives in the US state of Wyoming, came to doubt the possibility of turning the Chicago Tribune into a national newspaper. It also suggested Mr. Bainum is turning to other potential partners but later Tribune Publishing independent directors said all talks were off and Mr. Bainum would not longer have access to company financial data. (See earlier article on the Tribune Publishing acquisition here)
Totally unrelated, especially by distance, French telecom billionaire Xavier Niel has decided to cede his investment interests in newspapers Le Monde, Nice-Matin and others to a foundation called Fund for the Independence of the Press, reported Le Figaro (April 16). He will receive a symbolic €1 and will retain one share so he can at will replenish the fund. This comes as the French media sector is rife with multiple takeovers and departures. (See more about that story here)
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