Consortium May Rival DirecTV Bid For Vivendi’s Brazilian Broadband Unit: Report
A group of private equity firms may bid against DirecTV to acquire GVT, the Brazilian broadband unit of Canal Plus owner Vivendi. The firms include KKR, Apax Partners, JPMorgan Chase’s Gavea Investments and Cambuhy Investimentos, Bloomberg reports. The consortium would be willing to pay about 5B euros ($6.78B), starkly lower than Vivendi’s 8B euro ($10.85B) asking price. But DirecTV may get closer to the ask, as it eyes increased demand for pay-TV and Internet service in Latin America and with growth subsiding in the U.S., Bloomberg sources said. “I see it as a nice-to-have, not a must-have,” DirecTV CEO Mike White said earlier this month. “There are synergies, but it’s still a work in process, and I can’t yet tell you whether the synergies are big enough for me to get comfortable that they can more than offset the premium. All that depends on the price.” DirecTV, Liberty Global, America Movil and a group of private equity funds were reported to have entered non-binding bids of less than 7B euros in November, Reuters said at the time. Vivendi acquired GVT for $4.18B in 2009 but has been looking to divest of some telecom assets as it focuses on developing its content and media businesses. The GVT auction is moving into a second round of bids and could be concluded by the end of February, Bloomberg said.
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