OCTOBER 17, 2001

Kirch to offload debts

The Kirch Group which now controls the majority of the shares of the Formula One group of companies is to be merged into its subsidiary ProSiebenSAT1 in order to become listed in the stock exchange in Germany.

THE Kirch Group which now controls the majority of the shares of the Formula One group of companies is to be merged into its subsidiary ProSiebenSAT1 in order to become listed in the stock exchange in Germany. However the deal was not very attractive to existing ProSiebenSAT1 investors and so Kirch has decided that some of the debts associated with F1 will remain with the Kirch Pay TV operations which is a separate company. The current debt associated with the deal is around $2.7bn. This is being done because the share price of ProSiebenSAT1 has fallen like a stone since the plans of the merger were announced a few weeks ago.