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September 07, 2007

Central European Media Enterprises Gains Control of Ukraine License

Central European Media Enterprises announced earlier this week that it had gained control of its broadcasting license in Ukraine. This is very good news as license control provides added protection against emerging market political and regulatory risk. CETV now controls its licenses in every country in which it operates (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, and Ukraine). The license control came without cost for CETV as ownership was established previously but the government had not completed the registration due to various issues within and without CETV's control. The next step will be to increase Ukraine ownership above the 60% level and gain full management control. When CETV completed this process in other countries (most recently Slovakia), results accelerated dramatically and quickly. Last week's news that CETV had sold a 3% stake to Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky and invited him to join the Board is probably a prelude to the securing greater ownership in a partnership with Kolomoisky. Despite the shortfall and lowered guidance in Ukraine this year, all of this news is very positive for the longer term upside in Ukraine which has the potential to be CETV's largest market in the next five to ten years.

Posted by Steve Birenberg at September 7, 2007 10:33 AM in CETV