M6 fell 10% on the stock market on Tuesday, the day after the announcement by the German group Bertelsmann of the abandonment of the project to sell its 48.3% stake in the capital of the French audiovisual group. For operators, it is the end of the speculative premium in this case.
After the failure of the merger with TF1, many candidates had jostled to try a new rapprochement. Among them, businessman Stéphane Courbit (FL Entertainment, Banijay), allied with financial partners (Rodolphe Saadé, CEO of CMA CGM, and Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière) for an offer reaching 20 euros per share. Xavier Niel associated with Media for Europe, the former Mediaset of Silvio Berlusconi, and finally the Czech Daniel Kretinsky would also have positioned themselves.
” We will pursue our strategy, which aims to create a media group capable of competing with American platformssaid the German group, reference shareholder of M6 for 35 years. “Several offers were however judged” interesting financially.
The license renewed in May 2023
” While the channel’s license should be renewed in May 2023, the group could therefore no longer be sold for five years given French lawanalyzes the firm Oddo BHF. In other words, RTL Group could remain M6’s reference shareholder until May 2028. The speculative dimension should therefore be nil on the title. Admittedly, this was not certain because an offer on the minority interests was not guaranteed. »
Therefore, the research office, which until now applied ” a speculative premium of 15% », Takes the title out of its list of convictions, with a price target which nevertheless still stands at 20 euros per share. ” Although the upside potential remains significant from a fundamental point of view, the end of the speculative scenario which had been our main motivation for placing M6 in our List is losing momentum. We therefore remove M6 “, concludes the analyst firm.
This decision by RTL Group to retain its stake does not, however, prevent the arrival of new partners in the capital of M6, its chairman of the management board, Nicolas de Tavernost, indicated on Tuesday: “ RTL Group has no intention of lowering its stake from 48.3%, but nothing prevents bringing in partners who would help us in our developmenthe declared in the columns of the Figaro. During the entire phase of dialogue with potential buyers, many partnership prospects emerged. »