NOVEMBER 3, 2000
EM.TV shares remain unstable
The rising and falling of the share price in recent days could indicate that someone is quietly buying small chunks of stock in an effort to build up a large shareholding in the business without drawing attention to themselves. This could lead to a bid for the company, despite the fact that the Haffa Family still controls 51% of the business. EM.TV has considerable assets in the cartoon and merchandising worlds and its investment in Ecclestone's Formula One group of companies should bring in income of around $200m this year. Haffa would like to sell his F1 shares for $2bn but as EM.TV is now valued at only slightly over $3bn he has to be careful of a hostile takeover bid either from the car manufacturers or from a media company interested in getting its hands on Haffa's cartoon library.