News Corp mulls bid for Turkey’s Calik Holding's media assets
23 Jan 2012
Rupert Murdoch's US media giant News Corp is planning to bid for Turkish group Calik Holding's media assets Sabah and ATV, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
US media giant Time Warner Inc, private-equity firm TPG Capital and RTL Group, Europe's biggest commercial broadcaster, are already in the race to buy Sabah-ATV, Turkey's second-largest media group owned by Turkish conglomerate Calik Holding AS.
The value of Sabah-ATV is estimated to be between $700 million and $1 billion, according to the WSJ report.
Sabah-ATV, which was acquired by Calik Holding from the Turkish state in 2008 for $1.1 billion, includes Turkey's leading daily newspaper Sabah daily and TV station ATV.
The company is controlled by the son-in-law of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister.
Çalik and its advisors at Goldman Sachs has last week received preliminary bids, but have pushed back the deadline until this week, in order to accommodate News Corp, the news agency said.
