Sky Deutschland has been found to have participated in Enron-like accounting hijinks according to the German financial regulator Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht–or BaFin for short. Sky Deutschland controls a majority of the broadcast rights to Bundesliga matches and is the German component of media behemoth News Corp’s European pay-TV market.
In financial years 2007 and 2008, BaFin found overestimations by Sky Deutschland–formerly Premiere TV–both the number of its paid subscribers and the company’s value. The “fuzzy math” appears to have happened prior to News Corp purchasing an interest in the company.
BaFin could invoke fines and other penalties on Sky and have the company correct its financial records going back to 2007 in order to more accurately assess the company’s value and its credit risks. Since the BaFin announcement, share prices of Sky Deutschland have dropped on the Frankfurt stock exchange.
The last time the company recorded a profit was five years ago, so the news of fines, penalties, and dropping share prices can’t be a good thing.
In relation to Bundesliga clubs, potential problems for Sky Deutschland should be minimally reverberated. The CEO of Bundesliga recently gave an interview in which he mentioned measures had been taken to insulate the clubs from such an event. The league’s single pay-TV partner back in 2001 went bankrupt, and the league learned to be a bit more cautious.
It’s just fun saying “Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht.”
Spelling bees in Germany must be insanity.
@BG
lolololol
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Soo FSC picks up Bundesliga. OM is happiest man ever.