Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent German media group Bertelsmann is expected to weigh in over the weekend on the offers it received for RTL Group’s 48.3% stake in M6 Group, France’s second largest commercial TV group.
Bertelsmann put M6 Group back on the market a little over a week ago, after its planned merger with Bouygues-owned TF1 Group was abandoned due to a number of competition concerns raised by France’s anti-trust board.
Bertelsmann’s chief executive Thomas Rabe asked to receive non-binding offers by Sept. 23 to test the market and received offers from three major bidders, according to Le Point.
These include a vehicle comprising Xavier Niel, the French billionaire behind the telecom group Iliad who co-founded Mediawan, and former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s MFE-MadeForEurope; as well as a consortium including Stéphane Courbit, chairman of TV powerhouse Banijay, Rodolphe Saadé, the French shipping billionaire, and Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, chairman of the investment vehicle Fimalac; and lastly Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky, who is a shareholder in Le Monde, the French newspaper, and recently lent €14 billion to Liberation, another newspaper.
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