The financial rating agency Moody's announced Thursday that it had again lowered the rating assigned to the financial situation of the Sino-Spanish group Mediapro, due to its difficulties in honoring the payment of rights to the French Football Championship (Ligue 1).
The rating of Joye Media, the Spanish holding of Mediapro whose majority shareholder is the Chinese fund Orient Hontai Capital, has been downgraded by a notch, from B3 to Caa1, which corresponds to a "very high risk" of non-repayment of credits, according to the scale of Moody's.
In making its decision, the rating agency took into account the "missed payment to the French football league and (of) the difficulty in making profitable the rights of French football with the number of current subscribers", explains in the press release. analyst Victor Garcia Capdevila.
Mediapro did not pay the 172 million euros owed to the Professional Football League (LFP) at the beginning of October and asked to renegotiate for this season the amount of television rights to the championship, acquired in 2018 for more than 800 million euros. euros.
Moody's puts a negative outlook on the rating, which means the agency is considering downgrading it again if things don't improve.
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