Sky must sell off ITV stake
PrintExpensive mistake
Posted in Financial News, 29th January 2008 11:49 GMT
Free whitepaper – PowerEdge energy Smart brochure
BSkyB has been told to sell off most of its stake in rival broadcaster ITV.
John Hutton, secretary of state for business and enterprise, has told BSkyB to reduce its stake in ITV from 17.9 per cent to below 7.5 per cent.
Hutton is following the advice of the Competition Commission which said in December that the cross-ownership would inevitably reduce competition between the two.
Sky should sell off the stake - not to someone associated with Sky - and not seek to buy more shares or get a seat on the board.
No timetable was released for the proposed sale which is likely to cost Sky dear because ITV's share price has fallen some 30 per cent since November 2006. The government decided not to release the timetable for the sale after a request from Sky. ITV argued the opposite - that the timetable should be public - Hutton decided not to release the information. ®
Free whitepaper – Optimizing the data center for cost and efficiency
What Exchange can't do - and Dell can
Enabling The Agile Data Center
Hosted CRM Can Be Your Secret Weapon to Success!
Checklist: Midmarket ERP Solutions
Dirty, dirty PCs: The X-rated picture guide
Top 500 supers - rise of the Linux quad-cores
Early adopters bloodied by Ubuntu's Karmic Koala
Sign up, sign up for The Register IT security newsletter