French Canal+ has offered $2.9b to buy Africa Magic's parent MultiChoice

France's largest media corporation, Canal+ has made an offer to buy the remaining shares of Multichoice, the parent company for Showmax, DSTV, and Africa Magic for $2.9 billion, both companies said on Monday, April 8, 2024.

"A combined group would be better positioned to address key structural challenges and opportunities resulting from the progressive digitalisation and globalisation of the media and entertainment sector," the companies said.

The move immediately positions Canal+ to dominate the African paid content scene and become the singular biggest entertainment, news, and sports content player on the continent.

Canal+ already holds the majority stake in MultiChoice.

The board of MultiChoice rejected Canal+'s previous offer in February of $5.65 per share as being undervalued. Canal+ has sweetened the bid to $6.73 per share, payable in cash, in the new required offer. MultiChoice is worth around $3.8 billion at this point.

Whether or not MultiChoice shareholders will approve of the new price is not yet known. But its independent board constituted for the deal will now consider it.

But even then, Canal+ will need to make changes to its board to accommodate the Black economic ownership requirements and restrictions on foreign media ownership in South Africa, which caps voting rights at 20%. Maxime Saada, chairman and CEO of Canal+ Group told Reuters that the company is working on more local partnerships to manage the regulation.

However, Bloomberg reported in March that Patrice Motsepe, the South African billionaire who is also the president of the Confederation of African Football could join the bid to help meet the black ownership requirement.

While MultiChoice is more prevalent in English-speaking countries like South Africa, Nigeria, and other English-speaking nations, the French media business has a wider influence in French-speaking African states.