by Thinus Ferreira
Busy with its aggressive takeover of South Africa's MultiChoice, Vivendi's Canal+ is now looking to grab Mauritius' pay-TV operator MC Vision as well, and wants to increase its stake in MC Vision from 37% to 75%, owning three-quarters of the company.
Bloomberg reports that Canal+ is set to suddenly more than double its stake in MC Vision for an undisclosed amount pending regulatory approvals in Mauritius.
Mauritius doesn't have the same supposedly stringent regulations around ownership of local media companies by foreign companies like South Africa has.
According to a joint statement that Canal+ and the MC Vision owner Currimjee Jeewanjee & Co published in the Le Dimanche/L'Hebdo newspaper, Currimjee Jeewanjee & Co will drop its stake from 53% to just 25% in MC Vision while Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) will sell its 10% stake in MC Vision.
Canal+ will gobble up what Currimjee Jeewanjee & Co and MBC owned in MC Vision, which launched in Mauritius as a pay-TV company in 1999.
Canal+ says owning 75% of MC Vision "will enable MC Vision to continue to meet the expectations of Mauritian households in terms of audiovisual content and services, while befitting from the support of the Canal+ group".