RE: On the flip side25 Nov 2024 08:20
TV industry sources told Sky that CVC Capital Partners and a major European broadcaster - thought to be France's Groupe TF1 - were among those which had been starting to study the merits of a potential offer.
The sources also said that RedBird Capital-owned All3Media and Mediawan, which is backed by the private equity giant KKR, were on the list of potential suitors for the ITV Studios production arm.
One cautioned that none of the work on potential bids was at a sufficiently advanced stage to require disclosure under the UK's stock market disclosure rules, and suggested that ITV's board, which is chaired by Andrew Cosslett, had not received any recent unsolicited approaches.
That meant that the prospects of any formal approach materialising was highly uncertain.
The person added, however, that Dame Carolyn McCall, ITV's long-serving chief executive, had been discussing with the company's financial advisers the merits of a demerger or other form of separation of its two main business units.