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Wade Davis’s group close to buying Univision

February 20, 2020

Maribel Ramos-Weiner

Wade Davis

A group of investors, led by the former CFO of Viacom Wade Davis and the Searchlight Capital Partners investment fund, has furthered negotiations for the purchase of Univision Communications, according to information from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). It is known that Univision would receive acquisition offers until this month, in order to evaluate and make a decision. The acquisition could be closed next week for around US$10 billion, including the network´s debt, as revealed by close people. This sum would be lower than the purchase price of Univision in 2007 made by Haim Saban and private equity firms, for US$13.7 billion.

At the beginning of this year, they also showed interest in the purchase of the network Platinum Equity, Hemisphere Media Group and Liberty Global.

Davis was appointed in 2012 as CFO of Viacom, leaving his position at the end of 2019, when the merger between Viacom and CBS, VIacomCBS, was achieved. Searchlight Capital Partners, that has offices in New York, London and Toronto, has participation in Hemisphere Media.