At the end of January, the main shareholder of the M6 group, the German Bertelsmann, announced its sale.
Since then, six takeover proposals have followed one another until Thursday, the deadline for submitting his file.
Result: all the major audiovisual groups want to get their hands on the channel.
M6 is for sale.
At the end of January its main shareholder at 48%, the German Bertelsmann, announced the sale of the group estimated at around 3 billion euros.
Proposals are pouring in to take over the large audiovisual group of which RTL radio is notably a part.
For now, six files have been filed to buy the group.
And the competition promises to be fierce.
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The announcement was unexpected: the trio Mathieu Pigasse, Xavier Niel and Pierre-Antoine Capton, supported, among others, by Bernard Arnault wants to buy M6 and RTL, announces
Le Figaro
.
The three businessmen met in a new company, PNC media, and had until March 11 to express their interest.
All the giants of the French media have submitted their files
And they are not alone.
Other candidates flock to the channel's door, mainly the large private French audiovisual groups: TF1, Vivendi, the owner of Canal +, or even Altice, which owns BFMTV.
But for each of them, there would be competition issues.
For example, TF1 and M6 control 75% of the advertising market.
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For their part, Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky and the Berlusconi family via his Mediaset group have also indicated that they are interested.
These offers will be examined on Friday by the main shareholder Bertelsmann, who says he is in no hurry.