Sipa Press: Offers on the table

On Thursday, February 28th, 2013, the candidates in the taking over of Sipa Press presented their offers to the Tribunal de Commerce de Paris. The court described their offers as “poor” and gave the candidates another week to improve their proposals.

On November 9, 2012, Olivier Mégean, was named President of Sipa Press by the German “investors” who “bought out” Sipa from the Pierre Fabre Group,than began a long and sad ordeal. He noticed that all of the shareholders were gone! On November 22, Sipa Press became insolvent and was placed into receivership on December 6.

Catherine Poli, appointed administrative receiver, submitted thirty proposals, which initially led to six takeover offers, soon reduced to three, and finally two, following a last-minute merger . The three parties in competition for Sipa are Xavier Niel with NJJ Capital (who acquired a controlling stake in Le Monde newspaper in 2010), G Groupe X, and Rex Features.

Michel Puech

Read the full article on the French version of Le Journal.