{"id":572787,"date":"2024-12-29T15:59:03","date_gmt":"2024-12-29T13:59:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=572787"},"modified":"2024-12-29T16:00:26","modified_gmt":"2024-12-29T14:00:26","slug":"dstv-owners-big-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/572787-dstv-owners-big-year.html","title":{"rendered":"DStv owner’s big year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

2025 will be the most important year in the recent history of DStv parent company MultiChoice, with a major deal set to shape the future of South Africa’s biggest private broadcaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MultiChoice hopes to complete a transaction in 2025 that will see it being acquired by Vivendi SE’s Canal+.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The French media giant has been a major shareholder in MultiChoice for several years but has reached an important ownership threshold. It gradually increased its stake in the company, eventually exceeding 35%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under South Africa’s business takeover regulations, breaching that threshold required that it make a mandatory offer to acquire MultiChoice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

MultiChoice rejected its initial offer to pay R109 per remaining share in early 2024, but an independent board found a revised offer of R125 per share to be “fair and reasonable.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The board recommended that MultiChoice shareholders accept the offer once it became unconditional, which the two broadcasters hope can be achieved by April 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The development has seen MultiChoice’s share price jump over 30% in 2024, reaching a peak around R120 in April. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the high share price, Canal+ continued to increase its MultiChoice shareholding to over 45% by June 2024. At that stage, acquiring the remaining shares would cost the company about R54 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buying MultiChoice will make Canal+ a true broadcasting giant in Africa, which is considered to have much more room for subscriber growth than continents with more developed countries and Internet penetration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Canal+ has over 26 million subscribers in 50 countries across Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Caribbean, and Oceania. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company already has a strong foothold in francophone Africa. Its Canal+ Afrique subsidiary operates in 23 countries, including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, and Ghana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, MultiChoice’s biggest subscriber bases are in anglophone Africa. Aside from South Africa, its major markets include Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although it only has a physical presence in 16 countries, its products are available in 50 African countries. As of September 2024, DStv had 19.3 million customers across the continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Acquiring DStv’s products and customers will make Canal+ one of the world’s top five broadcasting and streaming companies and the largest outside the US. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the big benefits of establishing a foothold in South Africa is significantly lower production costs. Canal+ will also inherit vast experience and resources to produce popular Africa-relevant content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It may also look to get rid of MultiChoice subsidiaries that are not related to its core broadcasting or streaming services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a customer perspective, seasoned television journalist Thinus Ferreira does not believe the deal will change much<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Regulatory obstacles looming large<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The takeover is still far from complete, with several regulatory hurdles that need to be cleared over the next few months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, the Competition Commission is considering MultiChoice and Canal+’s joint merger control filing, which they submitted in September 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to the large merger, the transaction will also require approval from the Competition Tribunal following a recommendation from the Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The competition authorities must consider whether the takeover will result in an anti-competitive environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MultiChoice is the dominant pay-TV broadcaster in South Africa, but its business has suffered due to the rising adoption of international video streaming services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, its best chance at competing with Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video might very well be a takeover by an international player.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another challenge will be ensuring that the deal meets South Africa’s foreign broadcast restrictions, which limit foreign entities like Canal+ from holding more than 20% of a local broadcaster’s voting rights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canal+ and MultiChoice are currently addressing this particular issue with the Independent Communications of the Authority of South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bloomberg reported that billionaire Patrice Motsepe was in talks with Canal+ to potentially join the deal and ensure its voting control structure meets the necessary requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The table below summarises MultiChoice’s timeline for finalising the takeover, pending the outcome of regulatory considerations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Date<\/th>Development<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
8 April 2025<\/td>Offer becomes wholly unconditional<\/td><\/tr>
9 April 2025 <\/td>Finalisation date: Announcement of the offer being unconditional in all respects, subject to receipt of Takeover Regulation Panel compliance certificate<\/td><\/tr>
17 April 2025<\/td>First payment date to shareholders who accepted the offer by the finalisation date.<\/td><\/tr>
22 April 2025<\/td>Last day for trading in MultiChoice shares to participate in the offer.<\/td><\/tr>
23 April 2025<\/td>MultiChoice shares trade after the offer<\/td><\/tr>
25 April 2025<\/td>Offer closes at 12:00 (noon)

Second payment date to shareholders who accepted the offer after the finalisation date. <\/td><\/tr>
29 April 2025<\/td>Results of the offer to be released on SENS and ANS for investors<\/td><\/tr>
30 April 2025<\/td>Results of the offer to be published in the media<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2025 will be the most important year in the recent history of DStv parent company MultiChoice, with a major deal set to shape the future of South Africa’s biggest private broadcaster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":573426,"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_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[11115,21383,3222,5960,85,475,97989,97988,92673,13175],"class_list":["post-572787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","tag-broadcasting-2","tag-canal","tag-competition-commission","tag-competition-tribunal","tag-dstv","tag-multichoice","tag-pay-tv-broadcasters","tag-private-broadcasters","tag-takeover-regulation-panel","tag-vivendi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572787"}],"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\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572787"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":576971,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572787\/revisions\/576971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}