UK pay-TV provider BSkyB has divested the 10.4% stake in commercial broadcaster ITV that it was obliged to sell by the Court of Appeal in a placement with Morgan Stanley Securities.
Sky has placed 404,362,095 shares with Morgan Stanley Securities at a price of 48.5p a share, slightly below ITVs closing share price before the announcement, giving it £196m (Â224m). The pay-TV operator said it would retain the residual 7.5% stake in ITV in the medium term and said it remained Âa committed shareholder of ITVÂ.
The sale, which results in a loss of about £350m to the operator, brings to an end SkyÂs two year-long struggle to retain its stake in ITV. Sky decided not to exercise its option to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
Sky acquired a 17.9% stake in ITV in 2006 for £940m, representing 135p a share, a move that was widely seen as designed to prevent a merger between cable operator NTL (now Virgin Media) and the commercial broadcaster.
Sky has already written down the value of the stake in anticipation of a forced sale.
ICYMI: Former Virgin Media MD Pat Kiely launches Dublin-based prodco digitaltveurope.com/2021/03/01/for… https://t.co/zVGoQvZvwS
01 March 2021 @ 21:00:00 UTC
ICYMI: APAC pay TV revenues to fall by US$1 billion over next five years digitaltveurope.com/2021/03/01/apa… https://t.co/DVtBERM187
01 March 2021 @ 20:00:01 UTC
ICYMI: North American OTT market to double in revenue by 2026 digitaltveurope.com/2021/03/01/nor… https://t.co/uwCF2fmpwZ
01 March 2021 @ 19:00:02 UTC
.@ManUtd brings MUTV to Africa in deal with StarTimes digitaltveurope.com/2021/03/01/man… https://t.co/G77z8gGk2j
01 March 2021 @ 18:00:02 UTC
ATSC gives Recommended Practice status to Immersion Corporation’s haptics proposal digitaltveurope.com/2021/03/01/ats… https://t.co/OtcNEq3DIy
01 March 2021 @ 17:00:02 UTC