PARIS, March 15 — French shipping company CMA CGM has agreed to buy telecom group Altice’s French media unit, which owns leading news channel BFM TV, for an enterprise value of €1.55 billion (RM7.9 billion), both companies said today.

CMA CGM’s Chief Executive Rodolphe Saade intends to create a large media conglomerate in France, the company said in a statement.

"With this planned acquisition, we have the ambition to continue our long-term development in the media industry,” he said.

Altice’s founder and owner Patrick Drahi, who had recently vowed to cut his company’s massive debt through asset disposals, said the deal would allow the BFM and the RMC radio station to continue to grow under Saade’s ownership.

BFM is France’s leading TV news channel, and says it has 12 million daily viewers.

A post-Covid shipping boom fanned profits for shipping firms, prompting CMA CGM to invest in port terminals, logistics firms and French media.

Cash-rich CMA CGM already owns French regional newspapers La Tribune, La Provence and Corse Matin and holds a more than 10 per cent stake in M6, France’s second-biggest private TV network.

The transaction will be submitted for regulatory approval in France and is expected to close during the summer, Altice said.

CMA CGM is being advised by Morgan Stanley and Messier & Associés and Altice is being advised by Lazard.

Drahi is striving to boost creditors’ confidence in the financial reliability of his media-to-cable conglomerate at a time when revenues and profits at Altice France, the country’s second largest telecom group, have declined. — Reuters