CanWest Global cleared to buy Alliance Atlantis

CanWest Global cleared to buy Alliance Atlantis
by: CBC News

CanWest Global Communications' $2.3-billion takeover of Alliance Atlantis has been approved by the CRTC.

"We are satisfied that this transaction meets the requirements for Canadian control both in law and fact," said CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein in a release issued late Thursday.

The takeover — first announced in January — was controversial from the start, because of the substantial financial involvement of Goldman Sachs, a huge Wall Street investment bank.

Under the deal, Goldman Sachs would get a third of the voting shares, but almost two-thirds of the equity in CanWest Investments, a CanWest subsidiary that will acquire the Alliance Atlantis assets.

By 2011, CanWest will merge its existing broadcasting properties into CanWest Investments. That will boost CanWest's investment in the merged company to over 50 per cent.

"Thus, taking into account the entire transaction, CanWest’s share of the overall equity and voting shares does not cause concern" to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, it ruled.

Read the entire article here: http://www.cbc.ca/arts/media/story/2007/12/20/canwest.html?ref=rss