Media In The City: Havas Acquires BLM

The big city news last week was Havas’ acquisition of one of the country’s leading independent media agencies, BLM, for a reported £20 million.

The deal will see BLM combined with Arena Media Communications with the new business renamed Arena BLM (Full Story).

Arena BLM will be managed by Steve Booth, current BLM Chief Executive. Booth will report into Arena Global CEO, Joaquín Bohorquez.

In other news, Independent News & Media took full control of Clear Channel Independent – Africa’s largest outdoor advertising company – in a deal worth €86.6 million (£64.7 million).

Clear Channel Independent has forecast 2008 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of â‚Ź16.6 million (£12.4 million), representing a growth rate of more than 20% on 2007 (Full Story).

The sale of Emap’s Republic of Ireland radio business to Communicorp Group was approved (Full Story).

It was announced last July that Emap had made a conditional sale of its Irish stations to the Irish and European radio group Communicorp for £135 million, subject to regulatory clearances.

However, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland did not approve the sale of Emap’s Dublin station and Communicorp was made to sell it to UTV.

BSkyB was given more time by the Competition Commission to appeal against a government decision on whether it has to dispose of its 17.9% stake in ITV (Full Story).

Sky paid £940 million for the 17.9% stake in November 2006 and since then the shares have fallen, which means that the satellite broadcaster could be set to lose hundreds of millions if forced to sell.

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