Seven West Media’s merger scheme approved by shareholders

Seven West Media shareholders have passed the SCA merger scheme at a special shareholders meeting today, paving the way for SWM and Southern Cross Austereo to merge.

88.3% of SWM shareholders voted in favour of the Scheme Resolution; and 99.3% of the votes cast by SWM shareholders were in favour of the resolution.

Under the proposal, Seven West Media shareholders will receive 0.1552 shares in Southern Cross for every Seven West share, and own 49.9 per cent of the new group. Southern Cross shareholders will own the remaining 50.1 per cent.

But there is one more sticking point before the Christmas present can be unwrapped.

A court hearing will take place tomorrow morning, 23rd December, in the NSW Supreme Court. If the supreme course approves the scheme it can finally go ahead, after the previous ACMA approval in November.

If the merger is not blocked by the supreme court then the merged company will own radio, tv and newspapers, achieving a scale that will give it the size to achieve more that it could have previously achieved when it owned a regional tv network.

The new combined company will have revenues of about $2 billion and EBITDA of $233 million.