BERLIN (Reuters) – German media company ProSiebenSat.1 recommended its shareholders accept the latest public takeover offer from MFE-MediaForEurope, abandoning its resistance to the Italian group controlled by the Berlusconi family.
ProSieben said its executive and supervisory boards welcomed the higher bid from MFE, which values the company at some 1.8 billion euros, saying it showed a continued commitment from the Italians and could deliver 150 million euros ($173 million) in annual savings.
“Both Boards consider MFE’s amended offer to be adequate … and recommend that the ProSiebenSat.1 shareholders accept MFE’s amended offer,” ProSieben said in a statement.
MFE declined to comment on ProSieben’s statement.
Rival bidder Czech investment company PPF, which had been the German company’s preferred suitor, said last week it would not raise its offer after MFE sweetened its bid.
The Italian group’s pursuit of ProSieben is part of plans to create a European television company to challenge U.S. streaming giants such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.
MFE’s latest per-share takeover bid is made up of 4.48 euros in cash and 1.3 of its own shares, giving an implied value of around 8.07 euros per ProSieben share, said the company.
That represents a 24 percent premium to the Xetra closing price on March 26, it added.
The all-cash bid from PPF, the second-biggest investor in ProSieben, would have doubled PPF’s stake to 29.99%.
The Czech company’s cash offer was 7 euros ($7.99) per share for ProSieben.
PPF declined to comment on ProSieben’s statement and referred to what it had said last week.
ProSieben said that MFE’s amended offer represented a premium of around 15% to the partial acquisition offer of PPF as of August 4.
The acceptance period for the amended MFE offer expires on August 13.
($1 = 0.8635 euros)
(Additional reporting by Jan Lopatka in Prague, Milan bureau and Alexander Huebner in Munich; Writing by Ludwig Burger and Madeline Chambers; editing by Matthias Williams, Miranda Murray and Jane Merriman)
