Report by Neville Choi of EMTV
TELIKOM PNG Limited chief executive officer Michael Donnelly has confirmed that the company has purchased 100 percent shares of Media Niugini Limited from Fiji Television Limited.
In an interview with EMTV News, Donnelly said it took some time to finalise the acquisition, and Telikom was now ready to move forward with its development plans.
“It’s a great announcement for us, and we thank the minister for his support in the past few days,” Donnelly said.
Telikom, as you know, started talking to Fiji TV earlier in the year, and we signed an initial contract which was then difficult for Fiji TV to fulfill, so we pulled back, and renegotiated. Over the last three or four months we continued to talk to Fiji TV, the owners, and just in the last month or so, we got final agreement, and the minister took it to NEC for approval, and today, he’s announced that, so we’re very happy with the work done.”
Donnelly said Telikom was well aware of the kind of questions that would be asked about why it had decided to invest in buying MNL.
“Media Niugini Limited is a good business. It’s got a large viewership, it’s got very good people, and good capability, particularly in broadcasting and production, and probably the premier group in the country,” Donnelly said.
“It’s got a good business model, and it’s starting to make significant investments in a multi-dimensional platform. It already delivers its services today on the internet, television and mobile. And of course, with Telikom’s other subsidiary, FM100, we’re going to be able to take the products and services off EMTV, to that platform as well.”
He said there was a lot of synergy between Telikom and MNL in terms of infrastructure around the country, and these would be used to expand the reach of Media Niugini Limited’s news reporting services.
