Ten's $4bn sale opens for biddersJane Schulze January 22, 2007...

Ten's $4bn sale opens for bidders
Jane Schulze
January 22, 2007

THE $4 billion-plus sale of Channel Ten has officially kicked off with information memorandums being sent to potential buyers last week.
Citigroup, which is acting for Ten's 56 per cent economic owner CanWest Global, is expecting initial bids to be received by mid-February.
CanWest is also selling its New Zealand media group CanWest MediaWorks, and the memorandum stipulates separate sale processes for each business.

CanWest has agreed with Ten's independent directors that any buyer of its stake will make a follow-on offer to minority shareholders on identical terms.

Ten has hired Gresham Partners to advise it on the sale process.

Many observers consider Ten very fully priced. Nevertheless, a banker close to the sales said the processes had attracted "a who's who of sponsors (private equity firms) domestically and globally".

Likely bidders for Ten include the Macquarie Media Group, which owns a swag of regional radio stations and recently bought 14.9 per cent of Ten's regional affiliate Southern Cross Broadcasting, US television networks such as NBC and private equity groups such as Providence Capital. Hellman & Friedman, which is run by former Publishing & Broadcasting Ltd chief Brian Powers, is also thought to be interested.

Two major private equity firms that are active locally, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and CVC Asia Pacific, have already teamed up with Seven and PBL respectively, so competition issues will most probably bar them from bidding for Ten.

Texas Pacific Group also bid for a stake in PBL Media. It is now heavily involved in the Qantas buyout. Even so, the group's voracious appetite for Australian assets makes it a likely bidder.

Similarly, the Carlyle Group was a late entrant into the PBL process as well as an interested party in the failed APN process.

Carlyle is understood to be concerned about the prices its rivals are paying for recent buyout deals, but it would also be a logical participant in the two processes.

Foreign buyers of Australian television networks will be allowed for the first time when Communications Minister Helen Coonan proclaims new media laws, some time after February.

Among the buyers of CanWest MediaWorks, which owns two New Zealand TV stations and the RadioWorks network of NZ radio stations, is Fairfax Media.

Its New Zealand chief, Joan Withers, who previously ran the Radio Network in New Zealand, told a New Zealand newspaper last week that they would "never say never" to buying radio assets.

CanWest last week purchased the Alliance Atlantis business in Canada for $2.5 billion with GS Capital Partners but denied that this would increase pressure to sell its Australian and New Zealand media assets.