Word: kirchmedia
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...deal is "vintage Haim"--referring to the man's renowned eye for value, negotiating skills and colorful Yiddish shtick. "Bubeleh, let's make a deal; I feel it in my kishke," he'll say, referring to his gut. The assets were being auctioned off by the bankrupt German firm KirchMedia, which failed after owner Leo Kirch overexpanded into pay TV and sports programming. Saban was a dark horse, competing against global media giants like Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. But by early this year, Saban had talked his way into Germany's insular media community and, with a $2 billion...
Maybe. Kirch's empire, of which KirchMedia is only a part, is foundering under debts of $5.7 billion. Its creditors include some of Germany's biggest banks as well as foreign media empires, such as Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset. The law gives new management 90 days to come up with an operating plan under "self-administration," similar to the Chapter 11 bankruptcy provisions in the U.S. "There are more possibilities to save the firm than under the old law," says attorney Peter Neu, who specializes in bankruptcies. "They don't have...
...employment contracts, which scares off many potential investors. Complicating matters in Kirch's case is the company's opaque nature: deals and side deals obscured the true value of parts of the company, which were pledged as collateral for loans. At a press conference last week, executives said that KirchMedia owed Hollywood studios $441 million for rights to films - the first time that debt was disclosed. "The only one with all the figures is Leo himself, who kept them all in his head," said Norbert Schneider, chairman of a German media institute...
...family to buy the rights to Federico Fellini's La Strada. By the end, Kirch had amassed a film library of 15,000 titles, the largest outside Hollywood. He also owned the broadcast rights to World Cup soccer and a majority of the company that controls Formula One. KirchMedia held a controlling stake in ProSiebenSat.1 Media, one of Germany's two commercial television networks...
...While KirchMedia represents one of the three branches of the business, there was speculation that TaurusHolding, the main holding company owned by Kirch, as well as the pay television operation KirchPayTV might also be forced into bankruptcy shortly. Another division, KirchBeteiligungs, holds the rights to Formula One auto racing as well as a 40% stake in the Springer publishing firm, which could both be sold off to reduce debt. While there has been a public clamor to find a "German solution" to the Kirch bankruptcy, Schr?der has said he would have no objections if Murdoch took over parts...