Televisa to spin off sports, gambling biz

Article posted by Coliseum, November 9^th, 2022

Image: Stadium Azteka

Mexican television, cable and telecom company Grupo Televisa SAB plans to spin off its sports and gambling businesses into a separate company to be listed on the Mexican Stock Exchange.

‘MarketWatch’ stated that after Televisa merged its television and content business this year with the U.S. Spanish-language network Univision, the aim of the spinoff is to focus on core operations, the Co-Chief Executive of Grupo Televisa Alfonso de Angoitia said recently.

He said on a conference call with analysts. “We want to simplify Grupo Televisa as a cable and telecom operator.”

Mexico City (Mexico)-based Grupo Televisa is a Mexican multimedia mass media company. A major Latin American mass media corporation, it often presents itself as the largest producer of Spanish language content.

The Mexican Stock Exchange, commonly known as Mexican Bolsa, Mexbol, or BMV, is one of two stock exchanges in Mexico, the other being BIVA – Bolsa Institucional de Valores. It is the second largest stock exchange in Latin America, only after São Paulo- based B3 in Brazil.

‘MarketWatch’ further stated that the assets to be separated include the Club América professional soccer team which competes in Liga MX, the top tier of Mexican football, Club América home arena – the 87,523-capacity Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, Mexico, gambling operations, and magazine publishing. They account for around 7.4 percent of Televisa’s revenue and about 3.4 percent of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.

The businesses were among operations that Televisa put up for sale in recent years. Televisa sold its radio assets and minority stake in the live entertainment company OCESA (Mexican concert promoter), and de Angoitia said a spinoff would be a quicker way to separate the remaining noncore businesses.

He opined, “The market doesn’t give, in my opinion, a lot of value to other businesses as part of Grupo Televisa, and that’s why we believe more value can be generated as an independent company with those components.”

The new company would have no debt to start with, and has limited capital expenditure needs, mostly at the Aztec Stadium in preparation for the 2026 soccer World Cup to be hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, the executive said.

Televisa expects the spinoff to be completed in the first half of 2023.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup™ will be the 23^rd FIFA World Cup™, the quadrennial international men’s soccer championship contested by the national teams of the member-associations of FIFA. The tournament will be jointly hosted by 16 Cities in three North American countries: Canada, Mexico and the United States. It will be held from June 8^th, 2026 to July 3^rd, 2026.

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