RedBird IMI is pitching for the Telegraph and Spectator by lending the money to the Barclay family to settle all of its debt to Lloyds Banking Group (LBG), suspending the auction of the media assets by Goldman Sachs and upsetting the bidders.
Strong political headwinds to RedBird IMI did not take long to emerge in the UK, with the Secretary of State for DCMS, Lucy Frazer, “minded to” issue a Public Interest Intervention Notice (PIIN), as early as this week.
Jeff Zucker, CEO of RedBird IMI, is in London this week to promote the deal and respond to concerns over the public interest by making assurances to the UK authorities.
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Karen Egan was quoted in The Times on "Vodafone-Three merger faces competition investigation"
26 January 2024Karen Egan, analyst at Enders, said the merger would be likely to be referred for a so-called Phase 2 inquiry. “Clearly there will be a degree of overlap as they both offer telecoms services across an array of customer types, but the bulk of their customer bases are helpfully quite different, as the Vodafone brand has been more successful at the high end of the consumer market, while Three is much more of a value proposition,” she said.
The end of the beginning: Vodafone/Three merger
26 January 2024The CMA has announced the launch of its Phase 1 review of the proposed Vodafone/Three merger, with the timeline suggesting a Phase 1 conclusion in late March and a Phase 2 decision around September/October.
The main focus is likely to be whether the merger would lead to a substantial lessening in competition (SLC), with the companies' varied market positioning helpful in this regard.
The merger's prospective 'countervailing factors' are substantial, with an estimated 25-50% increase in sector capacity further strengthening the imperative for the operators to get customers signed up.
Joseph Teasdale was quoted in The Telegraph on "The anti-Andrew Tate: how MrBeast turned niceness into a $100m YouTube empire"
26 January 2024“We hear from ad agencies that clients are getting fed up with the online drama and if a site does not deliver sufficient measurable results to make it important enough not to boycott then they’ll just leave it behind,” says Joseph Teasdale, head of tech at Enders Analysis.
Karen Egan was quoted in the Financial Times on "UK says UAE group’s stake in Vodafone is national security risk"
26 January 2024Karen Egan, a senior telecoms analyst at Enders Analysis, said it was “inevitable that [the UK government] would be really sensitive about telecoms, which is more critical than ever to our lives in general and particularly in today’s geopolitical environment”.
She said risks included cyber attacks, interception and networks being shut down.
Egan added that the imposed requirements could be a template for the proposed domestic merger of Vodafone and Three UK, owned by CK Hutchison, if there are any national security concerns related to the Hong Kong-based company.
Karen Egan was quoted in The Time son "Ministers fear Vodafone shareholder poses national security risk"
25 January 2024Karen Egan, head of telecoms at Enders Analysis, said: “It demonstrates that there is a real sensitivity around the services that Vodafone provides and that influence from autocratic states is viewed with some caution. There will be some read across to both The Telegraph takeover case and the proposed Vodafone and Three merger. The mitigations that are suggested for the E& strategic agreement could well serve to address any sensitivities around CK Hutchison part-ownership of a merged Vodafone UKand Three”