According to information from the Financial Times, bidders are requested to make themselves known and send their offers to RTL Group before Friday.
The radio and television group M6 is once again the subject of a “market test” by its owner RTL Group, a subsidiary of the German Bertelsmann, after the failure of its merger with TF1 (Bouygues group) for competition reasons, learned AFP on Thursday. “Since the announcement last Friday (of the abandonment of the merger with TF1), we have been inundated with expressions of interest in buying our stake in M6. That is why we are testing the market,” an RTL spokesperson told AFP. Cluster, .
According to the financial daily, takeover bid candidates are asked to make themselves known and submit their offers before Friday. The German giant Bertelsmann, through its subsidiary RTL Group, holds 48% of the capital of the M6 group, which owns several television channels (M6, W9, 6ter, Teva, Gulli, etc.) and radio stations (RTL, RTL2, Radio fun). At the beginning of 2021, Bertelsmann wanted to withdraw from the French market and, after an initial market test, made the risky decision to merge with TF1, the main competitor of M6 in France.
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Investors in the queues
This marriage, which was supposed to bring important synergies, was finally annulled before , which demanded drastic remedies to avoid the creation of a dominant player in the market. Several major French (via Vivendi, , ) and European media names expressed interest at the time in taking over the group, and are likely to bid again.
Other European players are mentioned in the press, in particular the Italian billionaire through the MediaForEurope group. Vivendi, Altice and MFE declined to comment on this information. Among the possible candidates for the bid, a group of French businessmen, including the president of the shipping giant CMA CGM, Reuters learned from another source close to the file. CMA CGM said it does not comment on market rumours.
Hurry up ?
“RTL Group is in no hurry to sell M6. We believe the scam[…]