{"id":533047,"date":"2024-04-18T10:37:43","date_gmt":"2024-04-18T08:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=533047"},"modified":"2024-04-18T10:44:00","modified_gmt":"2024-04-18T08:44:00","slug":"dstv-takeover-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/business\/533047-dstv-takeover-continues.html","title":{"rendered":"DStv takeover continues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>French media conglomerate Groupe Canal+ has acquired another 3,653,492 shares in MultiChoice, bringing its total ownership of the company to 40.83%.<\/p>\n<p>It acquired the additional shares from 12 to 17 April for between R115.95 and R117.50.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCanal+ confirms that these acquisitions have already been disclosed to the Takeover Regulation Panel (TRP) as required under the Companies Act,\u201d the company said in a notice to MultiChoice shareholders.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSave as may be prohibited under the Companies Act and the Takeover Regulations, Canal+ may acquire further MultiChoice Shares after the date of this announcement\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Canal+\u2019s latest disclosure <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/532307-south-africas-biggest-pay-tv-company-now-40-owned-by-french-media-conglomerate.html\"><strong>comes a week after MultiChoice announced<\/strong><\/a> that the French company had crossed 40% ownership of South Africa\u2019s pay-TV giant.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome shareholders have asked whether Canal+ might cross the 50% shareholding in this way,\u201d MultiChoice stated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe do not envisage this happening as exceeding 50% ownership would amount to a merger under the Competition Act, which would require prior approval from the Competition Tribunal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>MultiChoice also reaffirmed that should Canal+ buy shares for more than R125 each, it would be obliged to increase its offer price to match.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/499205-big-questions-over-foreign-ownership-of-dstv.html\"><strong>Canal+\u2019s creeping takeover<\/strong><\/a> of MultiChoice began in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>When its shareholding exceeded 20%, it raised concerns that it could be violating South Africa\u2019s Electronic Communications Act (ECA).<\/p>\n<p>The Act states that a foreigner may not, whether directly or indirectly:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Exercise control over a commercial broadcasting licensee; or<\/li>\n<li>Have a financial interest or an interest either in voting shares or paid-up capital in a commercial broadcasting licensee exceeding 20%.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>MultiChoice dismissed these concerns, saying compliance with the ECA is ensured through restrictions in its memorandum of incorporation, where voting rights for foreigners collectively are limited to 20%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>French media giant Groupe Canal+ has continued to buy shares in MultiChoice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":411362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,19],"tags":[85,66933,35,475,80587],"class_list":["post-533047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","category-business","tag-dstv","tag-groupe-canal","tag-headline","tag-multichoice","tag-takeover-regulation-panel-trp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533047"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}