The holding company Promotora de Informaciones SA (Prisa) confirmed that the Asturian entrepreneur Blas Herrero has submitted a non-binding offer by the media subsidiary of the group that the board of directors plans to study.
Prisa did not specify the amount of Kiss FM’s owner’s offer, but media such as the financial journal Expansion and El Confidencial published this morning that the offer, in conjunction with other investors, was for press and radio assets and exceeded 200 million euros in cash.
Prisa’s shares jumped almost 15% on the stock exchange to 0.8250 euros after confirmation, having been suspended from trading all morning. On Wednesday, they had closed at 0.7190 euros, capitalizing on a total of 510 million euros.
Among the media businesses of Prisa, are the newspaper El País, the financial newspaper Cinco Días, the Cadena network and several radio stations in Latin America. In Chile, she owns Ibero Americana Radio Chile, a consortium of 11 chains that concentrate more than 50% of national programming.
With a newly refinanced net debt of 1.1 billion euros, Prisa’s media business is suffering from a decline in advertising spending, which has sharpened during the coronavirus pandemic. In the first nine months of the year it lost 209 million euros, from 110 million a year earlier.
With the restructuring of its liabilities, Prisa announced last month the sale of the Spanish subsidiary of Santillana, its most profitable division and for many experts the jewel of the crown of the group, to the Finnish Sanoma Corporation for 465 million euros.
Prisa’s main shareholders are the activist fund Amber Capital with 29.84%, HSBC and Telefónica, both with shares of 9%. Santander and the Carso group, the vehicle of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, complete the cast of relevant shareholders with holdings close to 4%.
