Canwest to have second suitor file rival bid Friday: report
Posted February 19, 2010 9:16 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER, B.C. – A report said Canwest Global Communications will have a second suitor Friday when a consortium files a $120-million bid for control of the broadcasting company.
The Globe and Mail said Toronto-based private equity fund Catalyst Capital Group has assembled a rival bid for Canwest to compete with last week’s offer by Shaw Communications.
Catalyst is a substantial owner of Canwest’s bonds, and the Globe said its bid is supported by Canwest’s founding family, the Aspers, and by Goldman Sachs Group.
The newspaper cites sources who said the Catalyst group also includes two former senior executives from Rogers Communications — John Tory and Rael Merson.
The Globe said the Catalyst coalition wants to own 32 per cent of Canwest in exchange for their investment, while creditors would hold the remainder of the company once a five-month-old restructuring is completed.
The offer, if successful, would thwart Shaw’s effort to gain control of one of the country’s largest conventional TV networks and a collection of coveted specialty cable channels.
The Globe report said it would also allow the Aspers to maintain a hand in the business founded by Israel Asper in the early 1970s.
Leonard Asper, currently CEO of Winnipeg-based Canwest, will become non-executive chairman of the company under the Catalyst plan.
But if the Shaw bid wins, Asper will be turfed.
The Catalyst offer emerges on the same day that Shaw is scheduled to go before a judge in Toronto to get court approval for an offer to buy 20 per cent of Canwest for an undisclosed sum, which analysts estimate is at least $65-million.
The Globe said most of Canwest’s creditors back the Shaw bid — but it does not have the support of New York investment bank Goldman Sachs, which co-owns Canwest’s stable of 13 specialty television networks which includes Showcase and History Television.
The newspaper said Shaw’s bid, which was launched last Friday, considers tearing up an agreement Asper struck with Goldman Sachs three years ago when the bank financed Canwest’s takeover of Alliance Atlantis Communications.
Sources told the Globe that the Catalyst proposal will keep the Goldman Sachs arrangement with Canwest in tact.
Goldman Sachs executives are expected to appear in a Toronto court Friday to support the Catalyst offer, and object to Shaw’s plans.
Catalyst was founded in 2002 by Newton Glassman, and became a major player in the winding down of Hollinger Inc. when it filed motions to remove Conrad Black from the company’s board, cancel his move to take the company private, and investigate Hollinger’s finances.
