Reuters – Colonial First State Buys Digita

Australia’s Colonial First State asset manager has agreed to buy Digita, the Finnish arm of private equity backed French broadcasting group TDF, Reuters reported Monday. The companies did not disclose the value of the deal, which sources told Reuters earlier could have valued the Finnish terrestial TV network operator at up to 400 million euros ($494 million). TDF, backed by buyout groups TPG, AXA Private Equity and Charterhouse, operates more than 11,000 radio and television transmitters across Europe.

(Reuters) – Australia’s Colonial First State asset manager has agreed to buy Digita, Finnish arm of private equity backed French broadcasting group TDF, the companies said on Monday.

The companies did not disclose the value of the deal, which sources told Reuters earlier could have valued the Finnish terrestial TV network operator at up to 400 million euros ($494 million).

TDF, backed by buyout groups TPG, AXA Private Equity and Charterhouse, operates more than 11,000 radio and television transmitters across Europe, offering broadcasting services to customers such as Kabel Deutschland , BT BroadCast and T-Systems.

The decision to offload Digita is part of TDF’s strategy to focus on core markets of France and Germany and was first considered by the French company late 2011 when it was preparing the ground for a stock market listing.

Digita’s revenue only accounts for 6 percent of TDF’s total turnover, compared with 55 percent for its French operations and 29 percent for Germany.

Digita is Finland’s national terrestrial television network operator and provides digital television services for the likes of national public broadcaster YLE. Finnish telecom operator DNA is its smaller rival.

After the deal goes through, pending Finnish government approval, Digita will be part of Colonial First State’s European infrastructure fund.

The fund has been eyeing European utilities to take advantage of volatile share markets and low global interest rates.