Sony still interested in buying MGM as Time Warner finalise their bid

Sony said on Monday that it was still interested in buying Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer after a report that Time Warner was nearing the final stages of a rival bid, reports the International Herald Tribune.

"We are still interested in MGM, but it's a negotiation, and it will be done when it is done," said Keita Sanekata, a Sony spokesman in Tokyo. He declined to comment further.

At stake are about 4,000 MGM movie titles, including the "James Bond" and "Rocky" series, which would bring the Sony chairman Nobuyuki Idei closer to making his Tokyo-based company also a supplier of content for consumer electronics products.

Kirk Kerkorian, the controlling stakeholder in Los Angeles-based MGM, may select a buyer in the next few weeks, The Financial Times reported on Monday, citing unidentified sources. New York-based Time Warner values MGM's debt and equity at $4.8 billion, the report said.

The Time Warner chief executive, Dick Parsons, has yet to persuade his board to support an acquisition, the paper said.

In April, a consortium led by Sony of America made a $5 billion bid for MGM and agreed to an exclusive negotiating period. But Sony was unable to complete the deal quickly, having become bogged down in negotiations with its own backers. This failure to complete the deal appears to have opened up the field to rival bids.

Thanks to `JP` for the alert.

Discuss this news here...