Univision Sale in Trouble?

Whether it's by chance or by conspiracy, it appears that the process set by Univision to sell itself and fetch as much as $14 billion is in trouble. If it was going to be hard to get that much money before, I can only image how hard it will be to get it now.

This is a very important story to pay attention to, especially for ethnic marketers, but the Univision sale is also a measure of the value of marketing directly to Spanish-dominant Hispanic Americans and the success of the industry built around it.

News media have circled around this story the last three days:

Today's (Friday) Wal Street Journal has a front page story on this sale. The headlines tell it all: "In Univision Deal, Frayed Coalitions and New Turmoil" then "Questions Emerge Over Value of Media Empire Focused on Latinos in the U.S." and finally "A Swarm of Top Financiers."

And there is this Associated Press story out last night with the headline: "Univision Cool to $10.7B Acquisition Offer." As well as this Reuters story about a potential new bid by Televisa.

And this was preceded by two days of negative media attention:

Thursday's front page of the The New York Times business section had a story by business reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin which screamed: "Disarray In Auction of Univision."

The favorite to buy the company, Mexican media conglomerate Televisa and American investors, missed the "deadline." Sorkin reports: "Though executives involved in the process said changes in the market were a factor, some thought the missed deadline by Televisa was a negotiating tactic." He continued: "Executives within Univision and the rival group have begun to speculate that the deadline was missed ... as part of a strategy to disrupt the auction process in an effort to drive down the price."

But given the right price the consensus is it will sell quickly. Sorkin's story concludes with the following: "The buyer would immediately gain the biggest gateway into a rapidly growing Latino market with some $480 billion in annual buying power."

The bad news continued Thursday with stories in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

"The future of Univision Communications Inc. remained in limbo a day after the call for bids was supposed to close," the Post's Kim Hart and Brooke A. Masters reported. They quote one analyst who says, "There has been an ongoing reallocation of advertising spending from television to the Internet, and Univision is not immune to that threat."

A Televisa spokesperson tells the Post: "We're confident that we'll come forward with the most attractive bid."