Germany’s RTL Group is holding on to its controlling stake in M6 Group, France’s second largest commercial TV entity.
The decision, which was announced on Monday evening local time, follows RTL Group parent company Bertelsmann’s strategic review of its options after the German broadcasting giant received several “financially attractive offers” for its 48.3% stake in M6.
Thomas Rabe, CEO of RTL Group, said: “RTL Group has been a strategic shareholder in Groupe M6 for 35 years. Groupe M6 is one of the best-run TV companies in Europe with an excellent management team, led by its CEO Nicolas de Tavernost. In 2021, Groupe M6 achieved record operating results. We will continue to pursue our strategy to build national media groups of sufficient size to compete with the U.S. platforms.”
The company was believed to be courting offers from three major bidders.
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. The group led by Courbit has offered an all-cash €20 ($20) per share for M6, valuing RTL Group’s 48.3% stake in the French banner at €1.22 billion, according to several sources.
Bertelsmann put M6 Group back on the market more than 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.
RTL Group said on Monday, however, that it considered the legal risks and “uncertainties” to be too high, due to the required approval processes from the antitrust and media authorities, and the timing for the upcoming license renewal for the main channel M6. (As The Financial Times reported, M6 Group’s 10-year license expires in May and any renewal would have locked in its main shareholder, preventing a sale until at least 2028.)
As such, the company has held off selling or reducing its 48.3% stake in the company.
Nonetheless, RTL Group said that it “remains convinced that market consolidation is necessary to compete with the global tech platforms – and that market consolidation will happen in the European TV markets sooner or later. With a strong presence across TV, radio and streaming, Groupe M6 will play a key role in any further consolidation in the French TV industry.”
