Dubai: Kuwait Projects Company (Kipco) has rejected a $3.2 billion takeover offer from a US private equity firm for its pay-television subsidiary OSN, the parent company said in a bourse filing on Sunday.
Kipco owns 60.5 per cent of OSN while Saudi Arabia-based Mawarid Group holds the remainder. They jointly refused an offer from the US firm, which was not identified in the statement.
The offer comprised $2.4 billion in cash and a further $800 million subject to certain conditions, according to Kipco. It said the offer was for between 51 and 100 per cent of OSN; it did not elaborate.
Dubai-based brokerage Arqaam Capital last year valued OSN at $4.3 billion.
The TV company has operations across the Middle East and North Africa, and posted earnings of 139.5 million dinars ($494 million; Dh1.8 billion) in 2013.
Kipco said early this year that OSN might float on the London Stock Exchange in 2014, but OSN chief executive David Butorac told reporters in May that a public share sale was not imminent.
