Shanghai Oriental Pearl and China Media Capital will jointly acquire a five-per-cent stake in Infront Sports & Media following the completion of the agency’s takeover by Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda.
US newspaper Variety said that Oriental Pearl, a listed subsidiary of Shanghai Media Group, and CMC, a private equity fund run by former SMG leader Li Ruigang, will purchase their shares from Dalian Wanda.
Oriental Pearl, which will pay about €18.1m ($19.9m) for its stake, said the deal would help “Oriental Pearl and Star Sports obtain rights to broadcast major sports events and promote the development of its Internet TV services business”.
Dalian Wanda completed its acquisition of the majority shareholding in Infront earlier this month. The shares were acquired from Bridgepoint, the European private equity firm, with the transaction valued at approximately €1.05bn.