WARSAW
U.S. Scripps Networks Interactive (SNI) (SNI.N),
which agreed to buy control in TVN TVN.WA, wants to call on other shareholders
at the Polish broadcaster to sell it the remaining shares all at once, SNI was
quoted as saying on Wednesday.
"We want to do it in one shot, but this will depend on
whether investors are interested in selling us the shares at the proposed price,"
SNI's development director Joseph NeCastro told daily Parkiet.
"We already have the price that we want to propose and
if investors don't accept it we will buy only those shares we can, and decide
what to do next."
SNI is awaiting regulatory approval for its March purchase
of a 52.7 percent stake in TVN, one of Poland's two largest private
broadcasters, for 584 million euros ($654 million).
Scripps is required under Polish law to launch a tender to
increase its stake to at least 66 percent within three months of completion of
the stake buy.
It has said it wanted to buy all the remaining shares and
delist TVN, but investors were not certain SNI would do it in one call.
SNI's takeover deal valued TVN at around $1.84 billion, or
around 20.5 zlotys per share, according to Reuters calculations.
Scripps, a newcomer to the Polish market which owns the
Travel Channel and the Food Network, said it assumed a price of 20 zlotys per
TVN share in the planned tender call, but has not set the price officially.