Impresa media group in €1 million fire sale

On July 11, 2024 the Portuguese TV and media outlet SIC joined forces with the fund Crest II to purchase 90% of Etnaga, a Portuguese IT and software company that provides custom software solutions and operates the BOL (Bilheteira Online) ticketing platform.

Its services include software development, web design, and ticketing for events, and drew the attention of SIC to accelerate the group’s digital transformation. However, it didn’t last.

Suffering for a lack of capital, and at the time expecting a capital raise that would lead to the entry of Italian Berlusconi-owned media group MediaForEurope (MFE) with a capital injection, SIC sold its 30% share in Dual Tickets and as a consequence a 26.4% share in Etnaga for €1 million.

The total price of the operations was €3.5 million according to information on the CMVM securities market supervisor website.

Taking into account the value of the financial investment to date which stands at €2.5 million, the sale represents an asset windfall of around €1 million for SIC.

Initially a strategic purchase to enhance the group’s digital transformation, the strategy of the current fire sale of the same assets is about selling off minority shares to optimise its portfolio and focus instead on its core businesses.

Impresa, which owns both SIC and Expresso, has been having cashflow problems and has been negotiating with MFE for capitalisation worth €30 million which would give the Italian media group a 34% share in Impresa.

The operation would also enable Francisco Pedro Balsemão to continue on as CEO of the Portuguese media group founded by his father Francisco Pinto Balsemão who died in October.