Carlyle Group will pay about US$1.3 billion for the majority stake in Eastern Multimedia Group (東森集團), one of the nation's largest cable-television operators, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported, without saying where it got the information.
Carlyle outbid a mix of financial and industry bidders, including a group that included private-equity rival Newbridge Capital LLC and Liberty Media Corp, the WSJ said on its Web site, without citing anyone.
"Nothing is mature enough to make an announcement now,'' Eastern Multimedia spokesman Johnny Sand said when contacted by telephone yesterday.
He declined to elaborate.
Carlyle's Hong Kong-based spokeswoman Dorothy Lee also declined to comment.
Eastern Multimedia controls almost a quarter of the nation's cable television market. The operator would be the second to be sold in Taiwan in the past four months, as overseas firms bet they can boost profits by introducing new technology and services.
Carlyle is seeking to borrow NT$30 billion (US$927 million) for its bid, three bankers competing to lend the money to the Washington-based buyout fund said last month. The bankers declining to be identified before an official announcement. San Francisco-based Newbridge is teaming up with US content provider Liberty Media Corp on its competing offer, two other people involved in the sale said last month.
Final bidders for the group's Eastern Multimedia Co (
Carlyle wants to buy at least two-thirds of Eastern Multimedia in the first stage of investment, said the bankers. The private equity firm is asking banks to bid to finance the purchase of a 100 percent stake, they said.
The sale comes after Macquarie Media Group, Australia's biggest commercial radio operator, agreed last December to buy Taiwan Broadband Communications (台灣寬頻通訊) from Carlyle for A$1.19 billion (US$890 million), giving it a 12 percent market share.
The US buyout firm bought Taiwan Broadband in 1999 for about US$200 million.
Cable television attracted 4.5 million subscribers in the year to Dec. 31 since being introduced in 1998, according to the Government Information Office (GIO). About 200,000 customers subscribed last year, it said.
Eastern Multimedia had 1.05 million subscribers, or a 23.4 percent market share, as of Dec. 31, followed by China Network Systems Co (中嘉網路) with 21.8 percent and Taiwan Broadband with 13.6 percent, said Huang Ching-yi (黃金益), a GIO official.
Taiwan has set a ceiling of 60 percent for combined direct and indirect holdings by foreign funds in a cable TV operator, Huang said.
Sydney-based Macquarie Media avoided the ceiling in its acquisition by arranging for a local investor to hold preferred stock in Taiwan Broadband.
Eastern Multimedia said March 6 that it was in talks with international and local companies for a possible stake sale. It also owns units that operate news, entertainment and shopping channels.
Carlyle, manager of the largest US buyout fund, has more than US$34.9 billion under management, according to its Web site last month.
Zhang Yazhou was sitting in the passenger seat of her Tesla Model 3 when she said she heard her father’s panicked voice: The brakes do not work. Approaching a red light, her father swerved around two cars before plowing into a sport utility vehicle and a sedan, and crashing into a large concrete barrier. Stunned, Zhang gazed at the deflating airbag in front of her. She could never have imagined what was to come: Tesla Inc sued her for defamation for complaining publicly about the vehicles brakes — and won. A Chinese court ordered Zhang to pay more than US$23,000 in
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that its investment plan in Arizona is going according to schedule, following a local media report claiming that the company is planning to break ground on its third wafer fab in the US in June. In a statement, TSMC said it does not comment on market speculation, but that its investments in Arizona are proceeding well. TSMC is investing more than US$65 billion in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs. The first one has started production using the 4-nanometer (nm) process, while the second one would start mass production using the
A TAIWAN DEAL: TSMC is in early talks to fully operate Intel’s US semiconductor factories in a deal first raised by Trump officials, but Intel’s interest is uncertain Broadcom Inc has had informal talks with its advisers about making a bid for Intel Corp’s chip-design and marketing business, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Nothing has been submitted to Intel and Broadcom could decide not to pursue a deal, according to the Journal. Bloomberg News earlier reported that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is in early talks for a controlling stake in Intel’s factories at the request of officials at US President Donald Trump’s administration, as the president looks to boost US manufacturing and maintain the country’s leadership in critical technologies. Trump officials raised the
From George Clooney to LeBron James, celebrities in the US have cashed in on tequila’s soaring popularity, but in Mexico, producers of the agave plant used to make the country’s most famous liquor are nursing a nasty hangover. Instead of bringing a long period of prosperity for farmers of the spiky succulent, the tequila boom has created a supply glut that sent agave prices slumping. Mexican tequila exports surged from 224 million liters in 2018 to a record 402 million last year, according to the Tequila Regulatory Council, which oversees qualification for the internationally recognized denomination of origin label. The US, Germany, Spain,
RSS