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10-04-2017

Modern Times Group to Sell Nova TV in Bulgaria

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    SOFIA: Swedish digital entertainment company Modern Times Group (MTG) is on the point of liquidating its business in Bulgaria. According to several domestic publications, quoting the Swedish business magazine Dagens Industri, MTG is ready to sell Bulgaria’s second private national TV channel Nova TV and the newly founded film distribution company Lenta Films.

    The estimated amount of the deal is announced as being equal to 100 m EUR. All the shares of Nova Broadcasting Group (owned byMTG) in different online companies, including Netinfo, Eva, Grabo, Ebag and Broshura.bg, will be sold as well. This move follows the company’s latest series of withdrawals from the Baltic countries and the Czech Republic, after leaving the Ukraine and Russia, meaning the Scandinavian media conglomerate will no longer have a presence in Eastern and Central Europe.

    According to some local media experts, the results in Bulgaria were very good although the number of the employees there was the highest outside of Sweden.

    Modern Time Group bought Nova TV on 31 July 2008 from the Greek Antenna Group for the amount of 620 m EUR. The sum MTG paid at the time was much higher than what had been expected.

    Despite the financial loss from its sale of Bulgarian holdings, the new orientation of MTG seems to be irreversible as the company has decided to be much more focussed on the domestic Nordic market and the creation of new digital TV platforms, following the successful US Netflix model.