Providence et al. sell majority stake in M7 to Astorg

Astorg is acquiring its stake through the holding company CDS TopCo.

Alongside Providence, Airbridge Investments will retain a significant minority stake in the business.

The two firms jointly acquired Canal Digitaal Satelliet and TV Vlaanderen in February 2007, two companies that later formed part of the M7 group. Airbridge wholly owned M7 at the time and sold a majority stake to Providence, continuing to hold the remainder of shares alongside company management.

In September last year, Providence and Airbridge were reported to be seeking a dividend of approximately €300m from a recapitalisation.

Company
Founded as a group in 2009, Luxembourg-headquartered M7 is a provider of satellite and internet services.

The company operates CanalDigitaal and Online.nl in the Netherlands, TV Vlaanderen in Flanders, TéléSat in French-speaking Belgium, AustriaSat in Austria and Hungary, and CSLink and Skylink in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

M7 claims to have a subscription base of more than 3 million customers.

People
Marco Visser is the CEO of M7. Joel Lacourte is a managing partner at Astorg. Andrew Tisdale is a managing director of Providence.

Advisers
Equity – Emendo Capital (Corporate finance).
Vendor – Deutsche Bank (Corporate finance).

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• Topics
• Benelux
• Exits
• Media
• Partial sale
• Secondary buyout
• Luxembourg
• Providence Equity Partners
• Astorg Partners