M7 to buy Liberty Global's Eastern European DTH operations

M7 Group To Buy Eastern European DTH Operations From Liberty Global

LUXEMBOURG — M7 Group, one of Europe’s leading pay-TV providers, has today announced that it has reached an agreement to buy the DTH satellite TV operations from Liberty Global plc (“Liberty Global”) (NASDAQ: LBTYA, LBTYB and LBTYK) currently serving four Eastern European markets. Closing of the transaction is subject to regulatory approval, which is expected in the first half of 2019. LionTree is acting as financial advisor to M7 Group on the transaction.

Currently the Liberty Global DTH business serves about 800,000 customers in Hungary under the brand UPC Direct, in the Czech Republic and Slovakia under the brand freeSAT, and in Romania under the brand FocusSat. This acquisition will enable M7 Group to gain further scale and increase its top line by circa 30% post transaction.

Hans Troelstra, CEO of M7 Group, said: “This is a very logical acquisition for us, allowing us to consolidate the satellite TV activities of Skylink in the Czech and Slovak markets, while further diversifying our European footprint into two new markets. In addition, we will be able to roll out our hybrid satellite and OTT TV platform in those two new markets. In our existing markets the OTT platform is already used by about 15-20% of the base.”