Bauer Media – publishers of such luminary organs as Women’s Weekly, Woman’s Day and Cosmopolitan – is reportedly set to make a $1 billion offer for Southern Cross Austereo (SCA).
The Australian is this morning reporting that the German-owned media giant has had its eye on the radio network – whose brands including MMM and 2DayFM – for the past 12 months.
However, the work is still preliminary and has not moved any further than a potential deal being investigated.
B&T contacted Southern Cross Austereo for comment and got a very fast and efficient “no comment”.
Bauer have a number of radio operations – primarily FM and youth networks – in its other territories including the UK and its native Germany and it believes it is a good fit with its magazine division.
The OZ has reported that Bauer also looked at Lachlan Murdoch’s Nova Entertainment Group late last year but was emphatically told it was not for sale.
To muddy the waters even further, Channel Nine is also said to be very keen in SCA too and any takeover would be subject to current media ownership laws. However, there is now strong evidence that the Turnbull government will overhaul these but what that equates to and when it will actually happen remains unclear.
With so many keen suitors, SCA’s share price has unsurprisingly surged by a third since October.
