CANAL+ aims to buy a 70% majority stake in SPI International, a global media company operaying 42 channels and digital assets acrross the world, while keeping the current management team and operational structure in place. The completion of the transaction is subject to the approval of the relevant regulatory authorities in the territories concerned.
CANAL+ Group is a leading world pay-TV operator and major player in free-to-air television in France, while it has a wide international footprint with a presence in 40 countries in Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. In Europe, it has a strong presence in mainland France and Poland and has also acquired the M7 Group platform in 2019, totalling 22 million subscribers worldwide and has experienced continuous growth of its international business in recent years. This acquisition will help the group to expand its strategy of investing in content and reinforce its offers on its different markets, by relying on European leader Studiocanal, Kino Świat in Poland, and now SPI International.
In the context of this agreement, SPI’s Founder and CEO Loni Farhi and Berk Uziyel will continue to manage and develop SPI’s business with the support of their executive committee, while the parties will be able to generate reciprocal synergies to further strengthen the two groups’ presence in the international markets.
In a joint statement, Farhi and Uziyel, underlined: ‘It is very exciting news and the start of a new era for our brand. Both companies share a common vision for continuous growth and a strong international presence. We have been strategic partners for years, where we have built a great tradition of collaborations and achieving mutual goals. Now we will have the chance to join forces under one roof. SPI will further accelerate its growth with CANAL+ while leveraging natural synergies. We have an amazingly talented team that has produced incredible growth in the last decade. Now, with this great team and with much enthusiasm, we are delighted to become part of the CANAL+ family’.
For Maxime Saada, CEO of CANAL+ Group, the acquisition ‘is part of the strategy we have been implementing for several years’. And he completed: ‘We have set ourselves the goal of reaching a minimum of 30 million subscribers by 2025, and SPI INTERNATIONAL will certainly be a key asset in achieving this ambition’.
Jacques du Puy, CEO of CANAL+ International, completed: ‘This acquisition marks a new strategic step for the development of our European contents. It will be a great opportunity to develop new synergies and businesses for our activities, especially in the Polish market and in the Central and Eastern European countries where CANAL+ operates through M7 brands’.
