Televisa Says Ex-President's Heir Owe $32 Million and Better Pay Up

(Bloomberg) -- Grupo Televisa SAB, Mexico’s largest broadcaster, says the grandson of a former president owes them money for its radio stations.

Televisa had agreed in July to sell its 50% stake in radio operator Sistema Radiopolis to Corporativo Coral, a company controlled by Mexican businessman Miguel Aleman Magnani, for 1.25 billion pesos ($65 million). But they failed to make an initial payment for approximately $32 million, Televisa said in its third quarter report Thursday.

Coral and Aleman Magnani have “experienced delays in securing the necessary financing,” Televisa said, but access to financing was not agreed as a condition for payment, it said, adding it will begin legal actions if the buyer remains in breach of its payment obligations. Aleman Magnani, who held executive posts in Televisa decades ago, also owns ABC Aerolineas SA, known as Interjet, an airline that has been saddled with debt over the past few years.

A spokesman for the Aleman family said negotiations with Televisa are ongoing. The purchase proposal hasn’t been abandoned and the appropriate financial structure to complete the operation is being worked out, the spokesman said.

In August, Bloomberg reported Interjet is in “technical bankruptcy,” according to a court filing signed by its CFO, in which the carrier opposed an attempt by the tax authority to seize control of its bank accounts to collect owed taxes. The filing also pointed to unsuccessful attempts at raising capital after a delayed capital injection.

For Televisa, exiting the radio business is part of the company’s plans to dispose of some non-core operations so it can focus on its content and distribution assets, it said at the time. Grupo Prisa, as the publisher of El Pais newspaper is known, owns the remaining half of Sistema Radiopolis, a group that operates 17 radio stations in Mexico.

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrea Navarro in Mexico City at anavarro30@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Case at bcase4@bloomberg.net, Dale Quinn

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