The creditors of Endemol — the Dutch reality TV company whose series include Big Brother – are hoping that they can elicit a higher bid following a restructuring. They’ve set a December 13 deadline for a planned debt-for-equity swap designed to reduce the company’s debt to $670M from $3.7B, Italy’s La Repubblica says. Apollo Management, Centerbridge, and Providence Equity Partners and banks including Barclays and RBS are among Endemol’s biggest creditors. Company officials made no secret of their disdain for the Time Warner offer, which one insider referred to as “rock bottom.” It values the company at seven times its expected $192M earnings this year before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) — far less than the 12 times EBITDA multiple that Rupert Murdoch paid for his daughter Elisabeth’s Shine Group. Endemol founder John De Mol’s investment vehicle Cyrte is said to have wooed Ronald Goes, head of international TV production at Warner Bros, into making the bid; the Dutch Time Warner executive used to be COO of Endemol. Cyrte and the other leading shareholders — former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset and Goldman Sachs’ Capital Partners — are exploring several options for the company. For example, Mediaset has tried to persuade UK broadcaster ITV to buy it.


Once again, arranging deck chairs on the titanic. There’s definitely a handful of talented people left at this company in the US–but having seen it on the inside, even the TW offer over-values the worth of this company. Ynon and Tom T really fuckedup this company beyond repair, chasing after projects that delivered ZERO equity for the company. Meanwhile in the US, the reality development team is awful and led by a woman who has no clue what she’s doing. Any new shows that have sold have been sold despite of her, and at the end of the day–this is a company that likes to think of itself as an “idea company”–the irony is, there’s no ideas to be sold here.
Anyone who’s still sitting there really needs to evaluate why–and where else you can go–QUICKLY.
192 million ebidta and 3.7 billion in debt. That doesn’t make sense.
They can’t wipe off 3 billion in debt unless they give away the company. Banks and financiers are funny they will not loan 10k to someone who might pay them back but they will lend a billion dollars to someone who can never pay them back
Perfectly stated Sir.
Here’s just another case of shuffling $$ back and forth in an attempt to lower what a company owes. Amazing thru the years, all the BILLIONS that have been restructed by Investment Banks and other financial players. Debt for equity is only good if the company is sound, and their business is good and consistent. However, if you give a shareholder stock in exchange for lowering debt, the company’s stock has to be worth something. This is how the stockholders get spanked; they take stock that can be worthless, hence they never get paid back. Nice. Occupy Wall St.