South Africa’s Competition Commission has recommended conditional approval for the proposed acquisition of MultiChoice by French media giant Canal+, subject to certain conditions.
This marks a crucial step forward in the acquisition process, though the deal still awaits final authorization from the Competition Tribunal.
The Commission’s recommendations follow an extensive investigation into the proposed merger. While the Commission determined that the deal is unlikely to substantially prevent or less competition in any market, it has imposed several conditions to address public interest concerns due to MultiChoice’s pivotal role in South Africa’s media landscape.
Some of the imposed conditions include a three-year moratorium on retrenchments, increasing the shareholding for historically disadvantaged persons and workers in LicenceCo and Orbicom, MultiChoice Group’s continued operation in South Africa, commitment to continued expenditure on local content, and commitment to skills development. Also, the commitment to ensure LicenceCo will continue to source news content for DSTV locally is part of the deal.
According to the competition watchdog, the total value of these public interest commitments is approximately R26 billion (about €1.28 billion) over the next three years, based on MultiChoice’s past spending.
Canal+ currently holds about 45% of MultiChoice’s shares and has made an offer to buy the remaining shares at R125 each (€6.16), valuing the transaction at about R55 billion. The French media conglomerate is present in 25 African countries and has eight million subscribers.
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