Saban Group to Sell German Media Company

Hollywood mogul Haim Saban, who made his first fortune with the “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers,” scored another financial knockout Friday in the German media business.

A Saban-led group of U.S. private investment firms agreed to sell its majority ownership of German television broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 Media to the German newspaper giant Axel Springer for about 2.5 billion euros, or $3 billion at current exchange rates.

Springer said it also planned an offer to acquire the ProSieben shares held by other stockholders and eventually merge the two companies.

The deal would combine two of Germany’s leading media operators and make Springer a more formidable rival for Europe’s largest media concern, Bertelsmann.

ProSieben’s TV channels broadcast such shows as “Desperate Housewives,” and Springer’s publications include its flagship tabloid newspaper Bild.

For Saban, a 61-year-old billionaire, the proposed deal would cap his group’s revitalization of ProSieben and apparently give the group a large profit on its investment in the broadcaster.

The Saban group reportedly paid between $550 million and $650 million for its initial stake in ProSieben two years ago, although the exact terms were not announced.

At the time, ProSieben was owned by the bankrupt media group KirchMedia, and ProSieben was among the assets being auctioned to satisfy KirchMedia’s creditors.

Over the next two years, the Saban group’s new management “successfully restructured the company during a period of challenging market conditions,” and all four of ProSieben’s channels are profitable for the first time, the companies said in a statement.

Saban could not be reached for comment, but said in the statement that the proposed Springer purchase was “an ideal solution for ProSiebenSat.1” and a “decisive step into the future.”

The Saban group not only cut costs to help ProSieben rebound, it also used its Hollywood expertise and financial prowess to help the broadcaster land popular American TV shows and movies, including “Desperate Housewives,” “Sex and the City” and “Star Wars.”

After Springer and ProSieben are merged, Saban would become chairman of its TV advisory board and also would retain an unspecified investment in the business, the companies said.

Analysts had mixed reactions to the proposed deal. Some said it made strategic sense, pointing to other media companies -- such as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. -- that have both TV and publishing units. But others said it wasn’t yet clear how Springer would merge its properties to justify the deal’s price tag.

Saban, who was born in Egypt, moved to Israel at age 12 and later to France. He moved to Los Angeles in 1983.

In the late 1980s, Saban built his first fortune by repackaging cheaply made foreign TV shows for U.S. audiences, led by the “Power Rangers” franchise.

He parlayed his success into a joint venture with News Corp. in 1996, forming Fox Kids Worldwide Inc. The venture, which later became Fox Family, was sold to Walt Disney Co. in 2001 for about $5 billion. Saban’s net worth as of March was $2.3 billion, according to Forbes magazine.

Saban’s group in the ProSieben deal includes Alpine Equity Partners, Bain Capital Investors, Hellman & Friedman, Providence Equity Partners, Putnam Investments, Quadrangle Group and Thomas H. Lee Partners.

*

Times wire services were used in compiling this report.