Administration threat averted at Setanta

THE threat of administration at Setanta Sports looks to have been averted after an emergency two-hour board meeting last night.

Earlier, it had looked like the Irish and international divisions of the broadcaster were close to being sold off as separate companies, with its main British broadcasting business heading towards administration.

Last night, a spokesperson for Setanta said that: “The company is looking at a number of live options. There were no live options earlier yesterday.”

This development could result in the company being bought by existing shareholders.

The board of the troubled sports broadcaster held the emergency meeting for a second consecutive day yesterday, aimed at finalising details of its immediate future.

Indeed, it was looking increasingly likely that the British arm of the Irish-founded international sports broadcaster was heading towards administration.

The company has failed in numerous recent attempts to raise the necessary funds to meet payments over transmission rights for English and Scottish Premier League football matches.

Private equity houses Balderton Capital, which is headed up by former Esat Digifone chief executive, Barry Maloney, and Doughty Hanson (which owns TV3), are investors in Setanta, as is investment bank, Goldman Sachs.

Much speculation, of late, has surrounded accountancy giant, Deloitte, being on the sidelines ready to come in as administrator and the resultant selling off of Setanta’s various transmission rights at heavily discounted prices.

Setanta is thought to owe the Scottish Premier League around £3 million (€3.5m) and the English Premier League £35m (€40m) in unpaid rights.

Setanta – which broke Sky’s 14-year monopoly on live Premier League games in 2006, by winning the rights to 46 live games per season – got into financial trouble when it recently lost out in five of the six live transmission packages for English transmission for the 2010 to 2013 seasons.

This meant that it will only have 23 live matches per season and is expected to lose subscribers.