KEY POINTS:
Speculation that TV3 owner CanWest Global may sell its New Zealand operations grew yesterday as the company confirmed it had entered into a deal to buy Canadian specialty-TV group Alliance Atlantis Communications for C$2.3 billion ($2.84 billion).
This week Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper cited unnamed sources saying CanWest had teamed with Goldman Sachs to bid for Alliance and might fund the deal by selling Australasian assets.
Shares in NZX-listed CanWest MediaWorks rose 6 cents to $2.24 as news of the deal hit the market.
Goldman Sachs and CanWest Global, Canada's biggest media company, would pay $C53 per share for Alliance Atlantis, which co-produces the hit show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and owns 13 specialty channels.
CanWest Global owns a 70 per cent stake in CanWest MediaWorks - owner of TV3, C4 and about half of New Zealand's radio stations, including More FM and RadioLive.
The Alliance deal, which was expected to be finalised by the middle of the year, took investor focus away from CanWest's first-quarter earnings report, delivered earlier yesterday.
CanWest said profit spiked, helped by a firming ad market in Australasia and improvements in its Canadian television operations.
- REUTERS
