TS News - Green Light For Ufa/CLT Deal

• From: Martyn Williams <martyn@twics.com>
• Date: Mon, 09 Dec 1996 08:56:25 +0900
• From owner-ts-news@tele-satellit.com Sun Dec 8 19: 21:04 1996

TELE-satellit News, 9 December 1996

Green Light For Ufa/CLT Deal
  LUBECK, Germany, 96/12/09 (Sat-ND) -- The merger that will create
Europe's biggest TV company has finally been cleared by the shareholders of
the three companies involved yesterday. Ufa Film- und Fernseh-GmbH, a
subsidiary of Germany's Bertelsmann AG, and Luxembourgs CLT will together
form a new company with some DM5 million (US$3.3 million) annual revenues.

  The deal had been cleared by the European Commission, acting as the
European Community's cartel office, a few weeks ago. Some resistance of one
of CLT's shareholders, French state-owned media company Havas, was overcome
by a separate agreement between Havas, CLT's main shareholder GBL und
Bertelsmann.

  Havas is also a shareholder in French pay TV company Canal+, a former
Bertelsmann ally that now seems to move towards Bertelsmann's arch rival
KirchGroup in order to distribute its programming to the German market.
Bertelsmann officials have at the same time indicated they would cling to
their plans for introducing digital TV services in Germany even though a
planned digital bouquet was shelved last autumn.

  By: Peter Klanowski
  Source: Sat-ND
(c)TELE-satellit 1996. All rights reserved.

• Prev: TS News - Lockheed Martin To Build Koreasat 3
• Next: TS News - Hot Bird 2 Makes Pit Stop At New Location
• Index: TS-news mailing list