French media group Mediawan is in talks over buying a majority stake in the TV business of film director Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp.
Mediawan said on Monday that purchasing 80 per cent of the EuropaCorp/TV business — which excludes the US series part of it — was one of three acquisitions it was targeting.
Besides the EuropaCorp/TV business, Mediawan was also in talks over buying majority stakes in TV production companies Makever and Mon Voisin Productions.
Mediawan was set up by some of France’s biggest media investors to challenge market leaders such as NetFlix. It was founded by Pierre-Antoine Capton, founder of French media producer 3e Oeil Productions, and Xavier Niel and Matthieu Pigasse, co-owners of Le Monde newspaper and L’Obs magazine.
Niel also controls and founded telecom group Iliad, while Pigasse is a leading mergers and acquisitions banker at investment bank Lazard.
Mediawan said the planned acquisitions represented businesses with sales of more than 50 million euros (Dh225 million) in 2017.
