ACCC will not oppose Seven’s Prime merger, but deal is blocked by Prime shareholders
UPDATE 19 December: Prime shareholders have rejected the proposed merger with Seven, with 53.53% voting against the deal. More information will be available on Mumbrella as it comes to hand.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) will not oppose the merger between Seven West Media and Prime Media, which is scheduled to go to a vote tomorrow. However, after shareholders Bruce Gordon and Antony Catalano made it clear last week they were planning to block the deal, the regional media business has released a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) which says it is ‘unlikely’ the vote will be approved.
The post also announced the retirement of John Hartigan, who will step down from his role of chairman after the vote. A replacement will be announced tomorrow.
Seven championed its future merger with Prime at its 2020 Upfronts event
The Cat must be seething!
So the Warburton strategic masterplan is off to a flying start with this and another delay in the fire-sale of his magazine arm. Things are NOT looking good over at the Caterpillar franchise
Seriously…dying assets. Anyone who knows catalano he fights anything. How is ACM performing?
Surely if Seven’s local newspapers and Prime’s TV bulletins are covering different stories in the same markets, that’s evidence against merging the two. Yes it means that few stories would lose any diversity of reporting, but such diversity is fairly unlikely anyway. The greater loss would be in the diversity of topics being covered.