Russian tycoon Mikhail Fridman's Alfa Group has offered to sell its 25.3% stake in CTC Media, one of the country's largest independent media companies, to Swedish media group MTG, the owner of a 38.3% stake in CTC for $1 billion, Vedomosti business daily repoprted on Friday quoting information from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The offer expires on May 25. If MTG is not interested, Alfa may sell the stake to National Media Group, which Alfa is currently in talks with, for not less than $1 billion.
Alfa valued CTC Media at some $4 billion, or 15% more than the firm's capitalization on the New York stock exchange, when making the offer to MGT.
Alfa has been seeking to sell CTC Media for several years as the entertainment channels business is highly dependent on artistic success and the human factor, Vedomosti quoted sources close to the group as saying.
CTC Media operates three television networks in Russia - CTC broad-range entertainment channel, the Domashny female-oriented channel and DTV general entertainment channel.
MOSCOW, April 29 (RIA Novosti)
