Illustration photo – Daniel Křetínský on an archival image.
Paris – Billionaire Daniel Křetínský has officially submitted an offer to take over a 100% stake in Editis, the second largest publishing house in France. The French newspaper Le Figaro reports on its website today. Křetínský made the offer to Vivendi, which is the parent company of the Editis group.
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Le Figaro reports that three more offers have been submitted. They were made by the Italian Mondadori group of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the Canadian company Quebecor and the French media conglomerate Reworld.
The Vivendi company has a few days to present to the European Commission (EC) a new draft of the conditions for the sale of its publishing group. The four aforementioned interested parties wanted to acquire a stake in the Editis publishing house already in February, but the EC rejected the plan. Vivendi has to sell part of its portfolio due to competition rules in order to buy its rival Hachette Livre.
Křetínský already has a minority stake in the French newspaper Le Monde. Through the holding company Czech Media Investment (CMI), he also owns several French press titles, such as Elle, Tele7 Jours and the news magazine Marianne.
Křetínský also applied for the takeover of French television M6. In the end, however, it remained in the hands of the German company Bertelsmann.
In the Czech Republic, Křetínský, together with his business partner Patrik Tkáč, controls the Czech News Center company. Her portfolio includes Blesk, Sport, Aha! and E15 or Reflex magazine.
