Paris (AFP)

Mediawan, the audiovisual production company of the Capton-Niel-Pigasse trio, changes dimension: its founders announced on Monday several operations aimed at making him a European champion, including the launch of a takeover bid to gain control of the group, and a series of acquisitions including Lagardère Studios.

"The objective of this big bang is very simple, to create the European leader in content by making a succession of very important operations", declared to AFP Matthieu Pigasse, who founded Mediawan in 2015 with the troublemaker of telecommunications Xavier Niel and the television producer Pierre-Antoine Capton.

To begin with, the trio explains that they have created a new structure, called the Mediawan Alliance. Supported by the mutual MACSF and the KKR investment fund, this new company will launch a takeover bid for the Mediawan group, and will also obtain, via KKR, a 25% stake in the German producer Leonine.

The takeover bid should be launched in July, at a price of 12 euros per share, a 42% premium compared to Friday's close, which values ​​the company around 400 million euros. A price towards which the Mediawan share rose on the Paris Stock Exchange from the opening. The success threshold is set at 55% of the capital, knowing that the founders and MACSF already control 27% of the shares together.

"Until now we (the three founders, Editor's note) had 20% of Mediawan's shares and no exclusive control. If the public offer is successful, this will be the case," argues Xavier Niel.

This takeover bid is only an introduction to the three partners, who have already made Mediawan a champion of TV fiction production in France through acquisitions, including that of the AB group in 2017, then certain activities from Europacorp (Luc Besson's group) and the producer of the "Red Bracelets" in 2018, and set foot in Italy in early 2019 by buying the producer of "Commissaire Montalbano" and the series "Le nom de la rose".

- Joséphine and Grégory -

Indeed, they announced on Monday several new acquisitions. First, Mediawan Alliance will buy Pierre-Antoine Capton its own production company, dubbed Troisième Oeil, which manufactures so-called stream shows, such as France 5 magazine "C à vous", "Le grand Echiquier" ( France 2) or "Zemmour et Naulleau" (Paris Première).

And, at the same time, Mediawan made a firm offer to the Lagardère group for its audiovisual production subsidiary Lagardère Studios, which Arnaud Lagardère had been looking to sell for a while.

Mediawan puts on the table up to 100 million euros to buy this subsidiary present in 4 countries (France, Finland, Spain and the Netherlands) and the rich catalog, which goes from the series "Joséphine Ange Gardien", on TF1 , to "The Eddy", Damien Chazelle's latest creation, and the documentary "Grégory", both released on Netflix.

The Lagardère group confirmed in a press release this sale, which constitutes "a decisive step in its strategic refocusing", after having already separated from most of its activities in the media.

Finally, Mediawan "acquired a majority stake in Good Mood", a Spanish television producer, mainly present in the series, for an unspecified sum.

These various operations, which should be completed by September-October (some require the green light from the competition authorities) will allow Mediawan to double in size and chart new areas for growth: "Mediawan is opening up to a new activity, the production of streams, and we will be able to develop co-productions on a European scale ", argues Pierre-Antoine Capton.

With these major moves, the race for consolidation is accelerating in the TV production sector, after the announcement at the end of 2019 of the acquisition of Endemol Shine by another French champion, Banijay, the group of Stéphane Courbit.

And the Covid-19 crisis does not seem to have dampened the ambitions of the three founders of Mediawan ...

"We have made more than 20 acquisitions since the creation of Mediawan, our desire is to continue in this direction. We are driven by demand from platforms and our size allows us to provide them with content for all of their countries. ", summarizes Xavier Niel.

© 2020 AFP