The management and board of Sky Deutschland have recommended that shareholders in the German pay-television broadcaster should reject a takeover offer from UK pay-television broadcaster BSkyB.
BSkyB has offered €3.7bn ($4.9bn) for the 57.4-per-cent stake held by media company 21st Century Fox and €6.75 per share for the outstanding share capital in the broadcaster.
The management and board said today (Wednesday) that they believed “the proposed return to the holders of Sky Deutschland shares in the terms of the offer is inadequate from a financial point of view for the concerned holders”.
According to various reports, several analysts have deemed the offer for the outstanding shares to be too low.
In July, hedge fund manager Crispin Odey, the biggest minority investor in Sky Deutschland, rejected an offer from BSkyB for his eight-per-cent shareholding.
Last week, the European Commission approved BSkyB’s proposed acquisitions of Sky Deutschland and 100-per-cent of Italian pay-television broadcaster Sky Italia.
The proposed deal would bring together the leading pay-television sports businesses in three of Europe’s four biggest markets.