The new company, Televisa-Univision, will be dedicated to the production and distribution of content in Spanish. It will be the largest Spanish-speaking media group in the world, and has already announced the launch of an ambitious joint OTT.
Although they had denied it just a few weeks ago, Grupo Televisa S.A.B. (Televisa) and Univision Holdings Inc. (Univision) announced on Tuesday the completion of an agreement to combine Televisa’s assets -on the content side- with Univision, thus creating the “largest and most relevant Spanish-speaking media group in the world”.
The sum of the assets in the production and distribution of content of both companies through broadcasting (open TV), pay TV, digital and internet transmissions will create an “unparalleled” ecosystem to serve 600 million Spanish speakers.
The content library that both companies will combine, they detailed, will cover more than 300,000 hours of programming, becoming the largest depository of content and intellectual property in Spanish on the planet.
Added to this is Televisa’s production capacity, which in 2020 produced more than 86,000 hours of entertainment, sports, news and special events content.
As part of the operation, Grupo Televisa S.A.B. will receive a value of 4.8 billion dollars. Additionally, it will become the largest shareholder in the new Televisa-Univision, acquiring 45% of its shares.
Televisa-Univision will also have “as a strategic vision its digital transformation to conquer the streaming market in Spanish”, for which it will launch a joint platform with a potential market of 600 million people who speak that language, of which 128 million are Mexican and 61 million are Hispanics living in the US.
Supporting this transition to digital, they will be joined by strategic partners such as SoftBank, Google and The Raine Group. These three entities and the investment fund ForgeLight, led by Wade Davis, will contribute 1,000 million dollars to the operation and join the group of current shareholders made up of ForgeLight itself, Searchlight, Liberty Global and Grupo Televisa S.A.B.
It is estimated that Televisa-Univision will be a company that achieves estimated joint sales in the order of 4 billion dollars and an EBITDA of 1.6 billion dollars, with a margin greater than 40% post-synergies derived from the integration.
“With the scale that will result from the combination, Televisa-Univision will have a broad capacity to produce a substantially greater amount of content, especially in Mexico, which will be used to leverage the launch of its global OTT platform,” they said in a statement. .
Wade Davis, after the necessary clearances, will lead the new global content company. For their part, Emilio Azcárraga, Bernardo Gómez and Alfonso de Angoitia will form part of the Board of Directors of Televisa-Univision and the latter will be the Executive President of its Board of Directors.
Without changes, and remaining under the direct management of Grupo Televisa SAB, are the radio broadcasting concessionaires, the telecommunications companies (izzi, Bestel, SKY and others), PlayCity, Editorial, Intermex, the Azteca Stadium, the Club de Fútbol América and Other businesses.
Grupo Televisa S.A.B. It will continue to have Mr. Emilio Azcárraga as the executive president of its Board of Directors and Mr. Bernardo Gómez and Alfonso de Angoitia as executive co-presidents (CEOs).
At the same time, the Azcárraga family will create a new strategic area, which will be exclusively dedicated to the creation of news, informative and cultural content. These contents will be transmitted through the Televisa platforms.
The operation has already been authorized by the respective Boards of Directors of Grupo Televisa S.A.B. and from Univision Communications Inc. and it is expected to obtain the respective official authorizations, in Mexico and the United States, during the following months. While that happens, the operation of the content areas in Televisa will continue to be in charge of the current administration.
“Combining the content assets of Televisa and Univision had been a dream that had not been consolidated. Up to now. I am very satisfied with the new partnership with Univision and the opportunity for Mexican talent to be seen and recognized in the United States and soon in the rest of the world. We will be a global company,” said Emilio Azcárraga.
