KEY POINTS:
Prospects of closer ties between CanWest New Zealand and the Australian Network Ten have been kept in check with potential buyers being told they will be sold separately.
The Business Herald understands memorandums have been sent to the parties specifying separate sales.
The approach will appease some concerns
that if they were sold as one lot, TV3 and other broadcasting assets could wind up under the control of Network Ten in Sydney.
CanWest's Canadian owners have largely kept their hands off local management.
Any takeover of CanWest New Zealand would likely retain the current management team, which is credited with strong returns and a 25 per cent market share.
CanWest New Zealand chairman Tom Strike - who is based in Winnipeg in Canada - said last month that the company always insisted on local management for its investments.
A television industry source with an understanding of CanWest's approach to investment said the memorandums to potential buyers were a clear indication of separate sales.
"It is no guarantee that they don't end up in common ownership and it makes sense if you are trying to get as much as possible out of a sale," the source said.
Citigroup Sydney consultants reviewing CanWest Global Communications' South Pacific investments would not discuss the issue.
Private equity companies are likely to be among the prospective buyers. Media companies believed to be interested in TV3 include Kerry Stokes' Seven, which is cashed up after a deal with private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co, and Fairfax.
Fairfax has also been on an expansionary trail here and in Australia and Fairfax New Zealand CEO Joan Withers has not ruled out a purchase. However, sceptics say Fairfax chief executive David Kirk has said the company is not interested in free-to-air television.
Fairfax would likely be enthusiastic about CanWest radio assets as a way of attracting advertising revenue in Auckland, where it is under-represented in newspapers compared with APN News & Media, publisher of the New Zealand Herald.
APN owns the other half of the commercial radio sector, The Radio Network, in a 50:50 joint venture with US firm Clear Communications and is reported to be looking at buying Clear's stake.
In any case there is no requirement for CanWest to sell all its assets. In theory it could retain all its New Zealand assets in one division, such as radio.
While it has pulled out of international assets such as Irish TV station TV3 it has invested in radio in Britain and Turkey.
A media analyst for ABN Amro in Sydney, Fraser McLeish, said reports of prospective buyers, including private equity buyers, lining up for the CanWest sale memorandums were not surprising given the present fervour over changes to the media ownership rules.
"Everyone will have a look" McLeish said.
Rob Mercer of sharebrokers Forsyth Barr in Wellington said that the sale of New Zealand assets was a flow-on from the Australian ownership changes.
These had prompted CanWest to look at selling at a time when media stocks were attracting a premium so it could focus on expansion in North America.
Asked whether separation of radio and New Zealand assets would feature in the company's future he said media companies tended to have more than one string to their bow.
"If someone was to buy CanWest and broaden it to get some scale to drive a bigger piece of revenue in New Zealand media that would make good sense."
He said that CanWest New Zealand had performed very well but in operating terms had ben a slowing over the past two years.
CanWest MediaWorks stocks closed down 1c yesterday at $2.26.
