DirecTV has finally acquired those shares in DirecTV Latin America that it has been after for the past three, years, ending the involvement of the powerful Cisneros family, who operate in this case through Darlene Investments.
The Cisneros family is famous for its media holdings in Latin America and in October 2004 tried to sue News Corp for its enforced buyout of 14% of the shares in DirecTV Latin America.
News Corp wanted to create a holding company for all of South America, placing all the News Corp Sky holdings into the same company.
DirecTV offered to pay out $579 million to buy out all of the interests across the continent, but the Cisneros family said this valued DirecTV LatAm at only $217m, when it believed a value closer to $1bn was more appropriate. In September last year a US judge squashed the case and held Darlene Investments liable for breach of contract, and now it seems it has given up the ghost.
In the end DirecTV Group has agreed acquired the Darlene equity interest for $325 million in cash, substantially more than the original price, but this ends all pending litigation against DirecTV. DirecTV has more than 4 million customers in Latin America, and it is unclear whether or not this operation will be part and parcel of the deal that News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch has cut with Liberty Media’s John Malone, to let Malone acquire DirecTV in return for canceling the shares that Liberty owns in the parent News Corp.