29-10-2020

Canal + Polska To Launch IPO on Warsaw Stock Exchange

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    WARSAW: One of the leading Polish Pay TV providers Canal + Polska has announced plans for an IPO on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Canal+ Polska holds a 70% stake in Kino Świat, the leading Polish film distributor, making the company a major player on the Polish film distribution market.

    No date has been set yet for the company’s WSE debut but it is rumoured that the floatation is likely to be in the end of 2020 or Q1 of 2021 depending on market conditions for the floatation and final approvals. So far no prospectus on the IPO has been issued with specific information on how many shares will be available and a timetable of when shares will be on the market. 

    The company has a 21% share of the pay TV market in Poland with 2.7 million subscribers and generated revenues of 2.3 billion PLN in 2019.

    The French parent company, Groupe CANAL+ currently holds approximately 51% of the company’s shares with TVN Media holding approximately 32% of the shares and Liberty Global holding the remaining 17% of shares.

    In August of 2019, Canal+ announced the acquisition of 70% of shares of Kino Świat. The value of the transaction was not given. Kino Świat, operating in Poland for 18 years, distributes films both in cinemas, as well as on DVD / Blu-ray discs, on TV and VoD services. In recent years, the company has distributed the biggest box office hits including Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War. Its catalogue includes 1200 cinema and television films.