Spanish-language broadcaster Univision (NYSE:UVN) didn't get everything it wanted in auctioning itself, but it apparently got enough. Company officials announced this morning that Univision has reached an agreement to sell itself to a consortium of buyers including Haim Saban for $36.25 per share in cash and the assumption of about $1.4 billion of debt.
That share offer is a 13% premium to Monday's closing price and not a bad premium to the stock price before all of the buyout talk began. Of course, it's also less than the $40 that the company purportedly wanted originally, so this is not exactly a complete victory.
Now that the Haim Saban group has won, that means the Televisa (NYSE:TV) group has lost. As I mentioned in an earlier Take, Televisa was beset by internal troubles apparently related to the size of the bid, and several of the would-be investors ultimately left the group.
Maybe it seems silly to talk about the eventual fate of Univision on the day it announces that it's selling itself, but my hunch is that we'll all see Univision again some day. After all, these investors are private-equity folks and not media folks. So it won't surprise me to see these investors float the company in the public market again down the road.
In the meantime, it's a little disappointing to see one of the few great pure plays on a major demographic shift in this country go away. And though Univision investors aren't getting quite as much as they might have hoped, the consolation prize of more than $36 isn't so bad.
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Fool contributor Stephen Simpson has no financial interest in any stocks mentioned (that means he's neither long nor short the shares).
