Grupo Televisa SAB completed the merger of its media content and production assets with Univision Holdings II Inc. and its wholly owned unit Univision Communications Inc., the companies said Jan. 31.
The resulting combined entity, TelevisaUnivision Inc., will produce and deliver content, including Spanish-language originals, for its own platforms and for others as part of its global streaming offering. The company is on track to roll out its unified global streaming service in 2022, which will have a free and a premium subscription tier. It is also set to launch PrendeTV in the U.S. market.
TelevisaUnivision will also revise its programming strategy, enter into new distribution tie-ups and invest in new advertising products.
The merger, worth about $4.8 billion, combines Televisa's four broadcast channels, 27 pay TV channels, movie studio Videocine and subscription video-on-demand service Blim TV with broadcast networks Univision (US) and UniMás (US), Univision's nine Spanish-language cable networks, 59 TV stations and 57 radio stations in major U.S. Hispanic markets, and advertising-based VOD platform PrendeTV. TelevisaUnivision will also have a content library with about 300,000 hours of content while reaching more than 100 million Spanish-speaking audiences or over 60% of respective TV audiences in the U.S. and Mexico.
Wade Davis will be TelevisaUnivision's CEO, with Alfonso de Angoitia as executive chairman and Marcelo Claure as vice chairman. The company has named eight other directors, with Televisa retaining the right to appoint two more directors. De Angoitia and Bernardo Gómez, both co-CEOs of TelevisaUnivision Mexico, will remain co-CEOs of Televisa. The latter's news operations in Mexico will become part of a new independent company that will produce news content for TelevisaUnivision's networks in Mexico, to be led by Televisa Executive Chairman Emilio Azcárraga.
TelevisaUnivision's new investors include SoftBank Group Corp.'s SoftBank Latin America Fund, Alphabet Inc. unit Google LLC and The Raine Group.
Univision tapped Guggenheim Securities LLC and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. as financial advisers, Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP and Sidley Austin LLP as legal counsels and Covington & Burling LLP as regulatory counsel on the deal. Allen & Co. LLC is Televisa's financial adviser on the deal, with Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz and Mijares Angoitia Cortés y Fuentes SC as legal counsels and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP as regulatory counsel. LionTree Advisors LLC provided a fairness opinion to Televisa's board regarding the transaction.
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP also served as legal counsel to The Raine Group, while SoftBank Latin America Fund tapped Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP as legal counsel.