Via AFPR:

Fresh from Yahoo
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...=599&u=/nm/200
30221/media_nm/industry_kirch_dc

U.S. Billionaire Saban Moves in on Kirch Media
Fri Feb 21, 3:05 AM ET

By Ed Meza

BERLIN (Variety) - U.S. billionaire Haim Saban is likely to make a binding
offer for the assets of bankrupt German television titan Kirch Media in coming
days.



Saban and his chief strategy officer Adam Chesnoff are in Germany meeting
creditor banks and closely examining Kirch Media's books.


A lack of information about the company, whose assets include Germany's biggest
broadcasting group, ProSiebenSat 1, and a vast film library, has until now kept
the Saban Capital Group from putting a binding offer on the table.


Kirch's creditors had favored German publisher Heinrich Bauer, which wants the
broadcasting group but is lukewarm about paying cash for the film library,
which Saban is willing to do.


Bauer's initial plan was to finance the takeover of the library through program
acquisitions for ProSiebenSat 1's channels. Kirch's creditor banks, however,
were hit hard last year by the company's insolvency, which canceled loans in
the billions, and they're eager for cash.


A Kirch spokesman reiterated Thursday that the creditors had never been in
exclusive talks with Bauer but had chosen to deal with the company because it
had been the first with a binding offer.


"If the creditor banks haven't made a deal with Bauer by now, there must be
something wrong," one source told Daily Variety.


Kirch Media's insolvency management entered into negotiations with Bauer in
October.


Kirch Media spokesman Rudolf Wallraf said Saban's preliminary offer is being
considered on a par with that of Bauer, adding that the company was expecting a
binding offer from the billionaire producer.


Kirch Media hopes to have the sale wrapped by the end of the month, but such
forecasts have proved wrong in the past.