BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the state-funded broadcaster, has held discussions with private equity groups and television content producers to find partners to fund its acquisition ambitions. Private equity executives who had spoken to BBC Worldwide said its leadership felt constrained by a £350m borrowing limit imposed on the business by the Treasury, and had begun looking for alternative sources of funds. The news comes four months after BBC Worldwide spent an estimated £100m on a majority stake in Lonely Planet, the guide book publisher, marking a departure from its origins of exploiting content created by the licence fee around the world. BBC Worldwide declined to comment, but one private equity executive told the FT that the group believed it should be allowed to take on as much as £1bn in debt to finance its expansion plans.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 5:27 and is filed under Capital markets, M&A, Private equity. Tagged with bbc. Edit this entry.