The Canal+ group, the largest shareholder in South Africa's MultiChoice, has raised its bid to acquire the operator's entire capital.
On February 1, the CANAL+ group submitted a "non-binding indicative" offer to the MultiChoice Board of Directors at a price of 105 rand. This offer represented a 40% premium over the share price at the close of trading on the day before the proposal was made.
This offer was deemed too low by Multichoice's board of directors, which stated in a press release: "Although the board of directors is open to all means of maximizing shareholder value, it has informed Canal+ that, at the proposed price, the letter does not constitute a basis for further negotiation."
At the same time, Canal Plus, which held a 31.67% stake in MultiChoice, increased its stake to 35.01%, the threshold above which a mandatory offer must be made under South African law.
This has now been achieved with this new offer of 125 rand per share, which values the Multichoice group at 2.7 billion euros.
The Multichoice press release also details the next steps in the acquisition process. "Once the mandatory offer has been made, MultiChoice's independent board will be formed and, after receiving the independent expert's opinion, will provide its opinion and recommendation" on the transaction.
Canal+ announced that parent company Vivendi is preparing to list it as a separate publicly traded company, allowing investors to benefit directly from the merger with MultiChoice, and stated that one of the objectives of the acquisition would be to list on the South African stock exchange.
The acquisition of MultiChoice, which operates in English-speaking markets, would make Canal+, which operates pay-TV services in French-speaking African countries, the leading player in the African pay-TV market.