Carlyle Group LP has agreed to sell control of Eastern Broadcasting Co (EBC, 東森電視) to a US film producer for about US$370 million, allowing the private-equity firm to exit the last of its Taiwanese media investments, a person with knowledge of the matter said.
Carlyle is selling its entire 62 percent stake in a deal valuing the Taiwanese broadcaster at about US$600 million, the person said, asking not to be identified before the transaction is completed.
Dan Mintz, chief executive officer of Los Angeles-based DMG Entertainment, on Sunday said in a statement that he is buying Carlyle’s shares, but did not disclose any terms regarding the deal.
The sale still needs regulatory approval, Mintz said.
The buyer’s funding sources will have to to be disclosed, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement yesterday.
A Beijing-based spokesman for Carlyle declined to comment.
The Washington-based private-equity firm is selling its stake in EBC after an initial investment in 2006 that was built into a majority holding two years later.
If the sale is approved by Taiwanese regulators, it would complete Carlyle’s exit from a competitive cable television industry that offers 277 channels via 56 operators to the about 5 million subscribers in Taiwan.
EBC owns seven channels featuring news, movies, soap operas and children’s programs. The company’s ETTV (東森新聞) is among the “most watched” news channels, according to the Cabinet.
Carlyle’s first investment in Taiwan’s cable television industry was through a stake in Taiwan Broadband Communications Co (台灣寬頻)in 1999. It sold out of that in 2006, the same year it paid US$1.5 billion to acquire Eastern Multimedia Co (東森媒體集團), owner of the Kbro (凱擘) cable television business.
That deal was the largest-ever buyout transaction in Asia, excluding Japan, at the time. Carlyle sold that investment in 2010.
Mintz said in his statement that he plans to use EBC as an “anchor platform” for global Mandarin-language entertainment, citing the “tremendous growth potential” of content in that language around the world.
Reports of the purchase helped drive shares of DMG’s Chinese partner, DMG Entertainment & Media Co, up by the 10 percent daily limit at the close in Shenzhen trading yesterday.
Mintz does not own any equity in the Chinese company, more commonly known as DMG Yinji (銀基), and the acquisition has nothing to do with it, a spokesman for DMG Entertainment said, asking not to be named due to company policy.
Mintz’s DMG and Yinji, which was listed this year following a reorganization of the DMG brand, are separate companies that continue to work together through a strategic partnership, according to Mintz’s statement on Sunday.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement that it had heard of reports about Mintz’s acquisition plan.
While Mintz is a US citizen, because DMG Yinji chairman Xiao Wenge (肖文閣) is from a family with a Chinese military background, regulators are to “strictly scrutinize” funding sources and shareholder backgrounds if an application is made to acquire EBC, the ministry said.
Xiao is not involved in the acquisition, DMG Entertainment’s spokesman said.
Carlyle’s exit from Taiwan is in step with other international private-equity firms.
MBK Partners Ltd this year sold China Network Systems Co (中嘉網路)for US$1 billion, a person with knowledge of the matter said in July, after an almost nine-year investment. EQT Partners AB sold its Gala TV Corp (八大電視), a smaller Taiwanese cable operator, in July last year, three years after acquiring the investment.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
RSS