Turner acquires equity stake in Esporte Interativo!

Turner Latin America and Esporte Interativo (EI) announced this morning that Turner invested R$ 80M to acquire a significant minority stake in EI through a capital raise. Proceeds will be invested in the business and EI will continue to operate as an independent company and be run by its current managing partners, who founded the company in 1999. With this investment, Turner will become the largest single shareholder of EI, and assume two out of seven seats on the company’s Board of Directors. The EI Board has been active since 2004.

“We are extremely happy to announce this strategic partnership with Turner, a media group that has been a benchmark for us and that we have always admired. Having Turner as a strategic partner will significantly amplify our investment capacity and give us access to state-of-the-art content production. It will also provide the opportunity to develop new business models in the dynamic environment of multiplatform content distribution. The size of our dream has just increased considerably with this deal,” stated Edgar Diniz, CEO of EI.

EI is a programming company dedicated to the production and distribution of sports content on several platforms. On TV, EI’s programming reaches over 33 million unique viewers monthly¹. The web portal www.esporteinterativo.com.br, re-launched in October 2012 in partnership with Yahoo!, is currently the third-largest sports website in the country, with over 10 million unique users per month². The company’s leading position carries over to social networks, as it holds the first position in sports media in Brazil on Facebook and second in the world (www.facebook/esporteinterativo), with more than 7 million fans. In 2012, the company launched Esporte Interativo Plus, an innovative TV Everywhere / on-demand service that makes EI’s programming available through the internet. The new platform allows viewers to watch all of EI’s content, live or on-demand, and select up to 4 simultaneous live events, as it did for EI’s broadcast of the Copa do Nordeste in the first quarter of 2013. Lastly, Esporte Interativo Movel is the largest sports content subscription service in Brazil, with more than 500 thousand active subscribers.

Turner Latin America is among the top multi-media groups in the region, and within Brazil specifically the company’s portfolio delivers the largest audience of any international Pay TV programmer³.  The Company distributes the following networks in Brazil: TNT, Space, I.Sat, TCM, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Tooncast, TBS muitodivertido, truTV, Glitz*, CNN International and CNN en Español.  Turner also handles ad sales and channel management for Warner Channel Brazil and owns up-and-coming celebrity news website FLASHLAND.

“This investment in EI marks an important strategic step for Turner in Brazil, our largest market in Latin America,” said Juan Carlos Urdaneta, President, Turner Latin America.  “EI has carved out a unique position in the Brazilian sports media landscape thanks to its compelling programming, multi-platform presence, and seasoned management team. We are thrilled to partner with such a strong company and look forward to working with EI to further expand its business into new market segments.”

The proceeds will be primarily invested in the acquisition, production and distribution of content.  EI already holds the rights of premium sport events, such as Copa do Nordeste; UEFA’s Champions League and Europa League; Spanish Supercup and Copa del Rey; German Cup; French Cup; qualifications for the 2014 World Cup;  NFL; Bellator; and WWE; as well as key Brazilian Olympic sports events, such as Volleyball (Brazilian Men’s and Women’s Volleyball Superligas, FIVB Volleyball World League and FIVB World Grand Prix); International Judo World Circuit; Handball World Championships; and Tae-kwon-do World Championships.