After almost a year of back and forth negotiations, it was announced on Thursday that Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris plans to acquire a majority stake in multilingual news channel Euronews. He plans to buy 53 percent, worth $40 million. No big deal.
According to Euronews’ press statement, the channel's executive board has approved the negotiated acquisition and the deal is pending on the approval of regulatory bodies. Euronews is a French company.
The CEO of Euronews, Michael Peters, said on Wednesday that, "We have been preparing for this step for a few months now. ... We have to invest in our channel's contents and in our programmes and in the Euronews brand. But in the light of the financial position of public channels in Europe, having foreign investments in the channel is more likely."
Philippe Cayla, chairman of Euronews, also affirmed his enthusiasm for the deal saying that, “The arrival of Naguib Sawiris would be a tremendous asset to Euronews, as this investment would allow a quick implementation of our development plan, while maintaining our European public mission heritage.”
Sawairis, who is 60 years old, stressed that the acquisition would not affect the practices of the news channel.
“The channel has been perceived quite strongly as a neutral channel and nothing will change that. We are going to have very good protection for the content. No interferences are going to be allowed,” Sawiris told the press on Friday.
“A news channel should be an open window for all opinions,” Sawiris added . “A channel can only be successful if it presents both views. If you decide to present one view, or interfere in blocking some people’s views, you are not a respectable channel and you lose credibility.”
Prior to the deal, the channel was owned by more than 20 European public broadcasters such as France Television and RAI of Italy, with six companies owning 90 percent share.
Euronews was established in 1993 by European public broadcasters as a substitute to CNN. The channel has a budget of $83.9 million, two-thirds of which Peters said is spent on editorial. It employs 400 full-time staffers and a further 200 freelancers and contributors.
Sawiris, the second richest man in Egypt, is worth $3 billion according to Forbes . He is the current CEO of Orascom Telecom Media and Technology.
The negotiations are ongoing.