De Mol scotches Disney rumors
Dutch mogul denies pair will bid for Endemol
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Spanish publication La Gaceta de los Negocios claimed Monday the pair were in talks to put in a joint bid for the European entertainment giant, which De Mol founded with Joop van den Ende in 1994 and sold to Spanish telco Telefonica in 2000 for E5.5 billion ($7.1 billion).
The speculation drove up Endemol's stock price, which had climbed 4.1% by the end of trading Monday.
Telefonica said last year it regarded Endemol as a noncore asset and accelerated plans to sell the company.
De Mol is a likely bidder, but his reps deny he's in cahoots with Disney or any other media giant. Disney and De Mol already are joint owners of kids channel Jetix Europe.
"It's just a rumor. ... Maybe next week there will be another rumor out there that we're in talks with Time Warner or ABC, who knows," said De Mol's spokesman, Thomas Notermans.
He added that "virtually every media company in the world" had approached De Mol to see if he was interesting in being a partner in a possible deal.
A Telefonica rep confirmed Monday that the sale was imminent, but refused to say if De Mol and Disney were among suitors.
The market certainly thinks a sale could come soon.
"Telefonica is making all the moves to sell Endemol, such as the incorporation of Endemol France into Endemol," said Fabian Lares, an analyst at Espirito Santo Investment. "A sale is certainly in the cards."
The price is another matter. There's little history in Europe of selling large listed content suppliers.
A JPMorgan report last week valued Endemol at somewhere between $3.43 billion and $3.72 billion, based on the operating profit multiplied by a factor of 11.8 to 12.5.
Such multiples are standard practice for company sales but look a little pricey for Endemol.
(Melanie Goodfellow in London contributed to this report.)
