NZZ Media Group will acquire shares in the FPH Freie Presse Holding even in the case of a PubliGroupe takeover by Tamedia

Zurich, 5 May 2014 – Following a successful takeover of PubliGroupe, Tamedia would transfer the PubliGroupe shares in FPH Freie Presse Holding to NZZ Media Group. Tamedia and NZZ Media Group agreed on this over the past days.

The agreed-upon conditions correspond to the sales contract between PubliGroupe and NZZ Media Group announced earlier on Monday.  The Swiss media group Tamedia had announced a public purchase offer for PubliGroupe AG on 17 April 2014. The focus of this planned takeover is a stake in the directory company local.ch, which PubliGroupe operates together with Swisscom. 

Based on this offer, the contract announced today, Monday, between NZZ Media Group and PubliGroupe concerning the sale of 25.07% of FPH shares at a price of 53 million Swiss francs (purchase price: 51 million Swiss francs, prorated dividends for the 2014 financial year: 2 million Swiss francs) is subject to the proviso of approval by an extraordinary general meeting of the PubliGroupe. For the case that the PubliGroupe shareholders do not grant their approval and decide in favor of the takeover offer of Tamedia, the contract with Tamedia shall come into play. 

NZZ Media Group has ensured the purchase of the FPH shareholding with the two contracts with PubliGroupe and Tamedia. At the same time, NZZ Media Group has obligated itself not to purchase any shares of PubliGroupe during the time of the takeover offer of Tamedia. 

NZZ Media Group currently holds 74.93% of the shares of FPH Freie Presse Holding AG, which has a majority share in the St. Galler Tagblatt AG in St. Gallen and LZ Medien Holding AG in Lucerne. PubliGroupe has held the other 25.07% of FPH until now.