Constantin Medien’s Sky Deutschland deal falls through

A deal for media company Constantin Medien to sell sports production subsidiary Plazamedia and significant minority stakes in German sports broadcaster Sport1 and the Constantin Sport Marketing division to pay-television broadcaster Sky Deutschland has fallen through.

The €57.5m ($80m) deal, which was announced in December, was subject to a new ‘multi-year production framework contract’ being concluded between Sport1 and Plazamedia. Constantin said this (Monday) morning that no agreement had been reached.

The proposed transaction, which had been cleared by the German competition authorities earlier this year, had included Plazamedia’s Swiss and Austrian subsidiaries. Sky Deutschland was due to acquire a 25.1-per-cent stake in both Sport1 and Constantin Sport Marketing.

Plazamedia said that the news would have an impact on Constantin’s financial outlook for the year, with group sales likely to be between €460m and €500m in 2014 – €40m higher than previously anticipated. However, Constantin’s earnings attributable to shareholders are likely to dip to a negative result of between €13m and €15m, with previous estimates being of a positive result of between €13m and €15m.