Scottish Media Group has now received four offers for Virgin Radio, of between £60 million and £70 million, pushing the group’s share price up.
A surprise bid has come from Malaysia’s largest media company, Astro All Asia Networks, with other bidders including Global Radio, which recently offered £313 million for industry leader GCap Media (see
Deadline For Virgin Radio Bids), and UTV, the Belfast-based TV and radio company that owns the UK’s talkSport (see
UTV Could Bid For Virgin Radio).
The fourth bidder is Absolute Radio, a radio consultancy that is believed to be fronting a bid on behalf of its biggest shareholder, Dublin-based property company, Landmark Enterprises.
Astro All Asia Networks’ bid is backed by Malaysian billionaire Ananda Krishnan, who has an estimated fortune of £3 billion, also owns Maxis, one of south-east Asia’s leading telecoms groups, as well as racetrack betting and lottery operations.
His name cropped up in 2006 when it emerged he had a 2.26% stake in UK media buying and market research company Aegis, and was backing the campaign by major Aegis shareholder, Vincent Bollore, to secure seats on the company’s board.
A private equity firm, Vitruvian Partners, was earlier knocked out of the running.
The deadline for the next round of bids for Virgin Radio is in mid-March.
SMG itself values Virgin on its books at £85 million. SMG shares rose 3.45% this morning to 15p.
Virgin Radio was put up for sale by SMG as part of a plan to sell off non-core assets, having previously postponed plans to float the station (see SMG Postpones Virgin Radio Floatation).
Last year, SMG called-off the sale of Virgin Radio after bids failed to reach the £80 million asking price (see SMG To Call Off Virgin Radio Sale).
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