Apple is reportedly set to pay in excess of $400 million for Anobit, an Israeli start-up focused on flash memory and digital signal processing technologies. The deal, reported in the Israeli financial press, may indicate that Apple is looking to boost the memory on its devices and improve reliability. Anobit’s products are already integrated on […]
Chase Carey, president/COO and deputy chairman of News Corp, made has told the UBS Global Media & Communications event that News isn’t happy to remain a minority shareholder in BSkyB, so if takeover is out then selling their stake is real possibility. During the Q & A session Carey signalled that the $15 billion-worth of […]
French investment and industrial holding group Bolloré and Canal+ Group have confirmed that they have signed the definitive agreement regarding the acquisition of the Bolloré Group free-to-air channels by Canal+ Group. The agreement provides for the acquisition of the Direct 8 and Direct Star channels in two steps, as well as of the advertising sales […]
Australia’s competition regulator has delayed its decision on whether the A$1.9 billion Foxtel acquisition of regional pay-TV provider Austar should be allowed to proceed. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said the announcement – which was planned for Wednesday – had been delayed ‘‘at the request of Foxtel to allow it to make further […]
Mediaset has put in a joint bid for Endemol, the indebted Dutch TV producer behind Big Brother, together with Clessidra, the Italian private equity group. Mediaset already owns approximately one-third of Endemol. A deal could still be months away as Endemol is going through a large restructuring of its €2.8 billion net debt following a […]
Canada’s Cogeco Cable has reportedly decided to sell its Portuguese cable TV and broadband/telephone operation, Cabovisao. The cable operator, according to the Lusa news agency has invited “expressions of interest” from other international operators and private equity investors. Lusa says some conversations have already started and are well advanced. Cogeco has controlled the business since […]
Microsoft has paid $70 million to buy VideoSurf, the online video search technology company. Founded in 2006, VideoSurf offers a back-end computer vision technology that “sees” frames inside videos to make discovering content fast, easy and accurate. Over time, Microsoft will integrate this technology across its entertainment platform to augment the Xbox 360 ecosystem and […]
Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim has bought 3.2 per cent of Spanish media conglomerate Prisa (Promotora de Informaciones). Slim used his Grupo Carso’s investment arm (Immobilaria Carso SA) as the acquisition vehicle. Prisa’s share price has fallen dramatically by more than 50 per cent this year, although on November 18th they rose 12 per cent on […]
Canal Plus pay- television unit is reserving the right not to go ahead with a planned purchase of a 34 per cent stake in France Telecom SA’s Orange Cinema Series channels, Le Figaro reports. Canal Plus has a clause allowing it to pull out if conditions imposed by French or European regulators are deemed too […]
French international media conglomerate Vivendi has dismissed rumours that it is considering the sale of its Universal Music division after its £1.2 billion (€1.4bn) acquisition of EMI’s recorded music division, and has confirmed its commitment to its telco and content assets. “We haven’t grown Universal Music with two major transactions [its takeover of Bertelsmann’s music […]