A rival South African consortium has reportedly emerged in the bidding for struggling pay television company TopTV.
HumanIPO reported last week TopTV had been successful in persuading the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) it should be allowed to add three adult channels to its bouquet.
Parent company On Digital Media (ODM) has already confirmed they are in talks with Chinese pay-TV group StarTimes, but Business Day Live is reporting today a consortium, called Dynamic TV, led by businessmen Given Mkhari and Malose Kekana has entered the race.
Other backers of Dynamic TV include multimedia company MultiChoice, which is owned by Naspers and operates DStv. It would normally be seen as a direct rival of TopTV.
Dynamic TV approached MultiChoice South Africa for a ZAR500 million (US$55 million) loan last week in a bid to implement a rescue plan at On Digital Media.
A Dynamic TV statement said: “The loan is consistent with the objectives of enterprise development and meets the requirements of both the generic and ICT codes of good practice.”
Shareholders are expected to be told about the deal at a meeting tomorrow by business rescue practitioner Peter van den Steen. TopTV has been in Business Rescue since October last year.
Business Day reports shareholders were planning to vote on StarTimes’ ZAR100 million (US$11 million) offer tomorrow, but the last minute bid could now delay that.
Although StarTimes would only take a 20 per cent stake in TopTV because of foreign ownership regulations, it is thought they would form a second company and in effect claim an 65 per cent “economic interest”.
The South African consortium is thought to be bidding ZAR400 million (US$44 million).
