With eye on Belt and Road Initiative, CEFC to buy majority stake in Czech broadcaster
Highly indebted producer CME is energy company’s third media acquisition
CEFC China Energy, the country’s largest non-state energy company, is poised to acquire a third media and communications asset in two years in Czech Republic. The company is expanding its footprint in Central Europe, a key market covered by Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.
CEFC will lead a consortium and is expected to provide the bulk of financing to pay €500 million for a majority stake in television broadcaster and producer CME held by the United States-based media giant Time Warner, according to a Reuters report citing three unnamed sources.
Two years ago, CEFC bought minority stakes in publishing house and television broadcaster Empresa Media and marketing communications services firm Medea Group for undisclosed sums. Both are based in Czech Republic.
A CEFC spokesman said he was unable to confirm or deny the Reuters report as he had “received no news on such a matter”.
The news of the acquisition comes two days after CEFC refuted reports linking it to a multimillion-dollar bribery case in which former Hong Kong home affairs minister Patrick Ho Chi-ping – the secretary general of a non-government organisation funded by CEFC – was arrested in the US on corruption charges.
“One cannot use traditional business sense to look at this company’s acquisition spree into so many industries,” said Junyang Securities chief executive Kenny Tang Sing-hing. “Its acquisitions follow closely China’s Belt and Road Initiative and appear to be driven more [by that] than business objectives.”
CEFC has in recent years bought a majority stake in a brewery and invested in football club Slavia Prague, an airline and a travel agency in Czech Republic. It is also in the final stages of buying half of J&T Finance Group, which has banks in the Czech Republic, Russia and Slovakia.