Sky Reduces ITV Stake

[Nafnaf]

It is final. Sky has followed the court ruling telling it to reduce its stake by more than 10.4% in ITV!

[ManniPakyaw]

Yup, Sky now only holds 7.5% of ITV, giving Sky an additional GBP196 million from the sale

[checkered]

Not bad. For Sky to have added revenue. Plus it quelled all concerns of antitrust!

[babydengue]

Not really. Sky I think registered a loss from the sale. Remember that they got all 17.9% stake for more than GBP900 million. The 10% it sold should have given them around GBP500 million. As it is, it lost money from the transaction.

[grover]

Well, that's what you get when you try to bully your smaller rivals! If they hadn't done that, ITV would have merged with Virgin more than 2 years ago! That should have given Virgin a good position to fight sky.

[Olongoer]

Do you know that that 10% represents a total of more than 404 million ITV shares???

[amber]

Will Sky divest itself of its remaining ITV shares? I don't think that their holdings in the company would have further benefit for them?

[cockroach]

I guess they will. Sky said as much in their press statement. They will hold on to the remaining and stay committed to ITV.

[rosaasor]

I don't think that getting rid of ITV is a bad move, even at a loss. You have to consider that the aim for getting these stakes was not as an investment vehicle, but as a way to block the NTL/ITV merger. And for another, you could see how ITV was losing money during the past two years? They should sell it to stop it from bleeding their own coffers dry!

[cholesterol]

Hmmmn... if you think about it that way, that's true. What is more, ITV has to deal with a pension fund deficit similar to BT's pension deficit. Plus finance costs and that losing Friends Reunited sale. ITV shares have fallen, and I think it's going to fall more in the next few months.