It is thought that the restructuring of the bond will allow Kirch to free up the revenue streams of the F1 business it partly owns.
Kirch currently holds a 57% stake in SLEC, the Formula One holding company, but this is likely to increase to 75% when the cash-strapped media group EM.TV completes the expected sale of its F1 stake to Kirch.
Last week, EM.TV released its interim results and EM.TV chairman Werner Klatten reiterated his desire to shed non-core assets like F1.
F1 earned EM.TV $85m (B92.7bn) in the first half the year, but the profits were eaten up by high-interest payments, partly made on a $1bn (B1.1bn) loan from Kirch that enabled EM.TV to acquire its F1 stake.
The involvement of Lehman Brothers in restructuring the “Bernie bond” appears to be part of a growing relationship between the bank and Kirch Group holdings.
Sportbusiness.com has learnt that ProsiebenSat.1 the stock-market listed commercial TV company, in which Kirch owns 88.5% of shares, made a presentation to Lehman Brothers on the German ad market last week in London.
Kirch intends to reverse its Kirch Media group into the Frankfurt-listed ProsiebenSat.1 by the end of June 2002.
