• by Wayne Friedman , April 14, 2021

In a $4.8 billion deal with its minority owner, Univision Holdings, the U.S. Spanish-language media company will be getting much bigger.

Univision will pay Mexico-City based Grupo Televisa $3 billion in cash and another $1.45 billion in equity for Televisa’s four free-to-air broadcast channels, 27 pay-TV channels, production assets, video library and its Blim subscription-video service.

Televisa-Univision will get a $1 billion equity investment by a consortium led by SoftBank Group. In return, Televisa's stake in the newly named company, Televisa-Univision, will rise from 36% -- when it was Univision Holdings -- to 45%.

The companies claim the deal will result in the largest Spanish-language media company in the world. Wade Davis, CEO of Univision Holdings, will lead the combined new company. Grupo Televisa’s co-CEO Alfonso de Angoitia will be executive chairman.

Izzi Telecom and Sky will be remaining with Televisa, as well as other businesses and real estate-associated production facilities, broadcasting licenses and transmission infrastructure in Mexico.

Univision Holdings includes the Univision and UniMás broadcast networks, nine Spanish-language cable networks, 61 television stations and 58 radio stations in U.S. Hispanic markets and Puerto Rico, as well as digital assets including its recently launched, ad-supported streaming service, PrendeTV.

In December 2020, two investment firms, Searchlight Capital Partners and ForgeLight, bought a 64% majority stake in Univision Holdings from an investor group that included Madison Dearborn Partners, Providence Equity Partners, TPG, Thomas H. Lee Partners and Saban Capital Group.