The CMA CGM group announced on Friday that it had signed a promise to purchase with the heavily indebted Altice France group, with a view to acquiring the entire share capital of Altice Media, parent company of BFMTV and RMC.

This acquisition will be carried out jointly by CMA CGM and its family holding company Merit France, at 80% and 20% respectively, on the basis of an enterprise value of 1.55 billion euros, says the group in a press release.

CMA CGM, which already owns the newspaper La Tribune, has also acquired the all-news channel BFMTV. BFMTV enjoyed a meteoric rise in France in the 2010s, becoming ubiquitous in the country's bars and cafés and often imposing the media narrative, with its all-news banner scrutinized by many political advisors and business leaders.

Its change of ownership will be examined by the French political class, in a context where the CNews channel, owned by billionaire Vincent Bolloré, represents a growing challenge for BFM.

This is not the Saadé family's first foray into the media world.

Last year, they launched a Sunday edition of La Tribune, in direct competition with Le Journal du Dimanche, a formerly well-known weekly taken over by Vincent Bolloré.

A source close to CMG CGM told Reuters at the time that Franco-Lebanese Rodolphe Saadé was keen for his media to offer a "nuanced" view of the world and not feed "the flames of extremism".

"With this proposed acquisition, we aim to pursue our long-term development in the media sector," said Rodolphe Saadé in a statement on Friday.

POWER AND INFLUENCE

According to media analysts, the high purchase price, more than 14 times Altice Media's Ebitda, probably reflects the additional level of power and influence that ownership of these well-known media brands will confer on Rodolphe Saadé.

CMA CGM's profits soared with the strong recovery in sea freight after the COVID-19 pandemic. The group took advantage of this to invest in the media, acquiring La Tribune last year, and the regional dailies La Provence and Corse Matin the year before.

Rodolphe Saadé has regularly taken part in Emmanuel Macron's trips abroad as CEO of a flagship of the French economy.

Altice founder and owner Patrick Drahi, who recently pledged to reduce his company's debt through asset disposals, said the deal would allow BFMTV and radio station RMC to continue growing.

BFMTV reports 12 million daily viewers. CMA CGM said it had asked Altice Media's management team to remain in place.

Cash-rich CMA CGM already owns regional newspapers La Tribune, La Provence and Corse Matin, and has a stake of over 10% in M6, France's second-largest private TV channel.

The group, which aims to build up a "benchmark media group" over the long term, promises an "editorial project based on pluralism, independence and journalistic ethics".

The operation is subject to information and consultation procedures with employee representative bodies, and to obtaining the necessary regulatory approvals. (Reported by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Inti Landauro, Gus Trompiz and Mathieu Rosemain; written by Inti Landauro, Ingrid Melander and Michel Rose; edited by Kate Entringer)