Luc Besson's EuropaCorp eyes TV unit sale to France's Mediawan

EuropaCorp SA

15/01/2018 17:00

PARIS, Jan 15 (Reuters) - French media group Mediawan 
 MDW.PA  is in talks over buying a majority stake in the TV 
business of film director Luc Besson's EuropaCorp  ECP.PA  
business. 
    Mediawan said on Monday that purchasing 80 percent of the 
EuropaCorp/TV business - which excludes the U.S. series part of 
that business - was one of three acquisitions it was targeting. 
    Besides the EuropaCorp/TV business, Mediawan was also in 
talks over buying majority stakes in TV production companies 
Makever and Mon Voisin Productions. 
    Mediawan was set up by some of France's biggest media 
investors to challenge market leaders such as NetFlix  NFLX.O . 
    Mediawan was founded by Pierre-Antoine Capton, founder of 
French media producer 3e Oeil Productions, and Xavier Niel and 
Matthieu Pigasse, co-owners of Le Monde newspaper and L'Obs 
magazine.  
    Niel also controls and founded telecom group Iliad  ILD.PA , 
while Pigasse is a leading mergers and acquisitions banker at 
investment bank Lazard  LAZ.N . 
    Mediawan said the planned acquisitions represented 
businesses with sales of more than 50 million euros ($61.4 
million) in 2017. 
    ($1 = 0.8149 euros) 
 
 (Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Jean-Michel Belot; Editing by 
John Irish) 
 ((sudip.kargupta@thomsonreuters.com; +33 1 49 49 53 84; Reuters 
Messaging: sudip.kargupta.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)) 
 
Keywords: EUROPACORP MEDIAWAN/