Polish ITI To Pick Buyer For Broadcaster TVN By Weekend-Source

Polish entertainment group ITI Holdings SA is expected to choose between the two remaining bidders for its Warsaw-listed broadcaster TVN SA (TVN.WA) by the end of this week, a person familiar with the matter told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday.

The two bidders are media firms Time Warner Inc. (TWX) and Vivendi SA (VIV.FR). Contrary to some reports, the two companies are not working on a joint bid, the person said.

Vivendi and ITI declined to comment. Time Warner wasn't immediately available for comment.

ITI Holdings SA said in July it was considering selling its controlling 56% stake in TVN, worth about 2.78 billion zlotys ($873 million) at current market prices. JP Morgan and Nomura are advising ITI on the sale.

In early September another person familiar with the matter told Dow Jones Newswires that France's Vivendi was most interested in TVN's pay-TV unit Platforma "n", and was looking to spin off the Polish company's web portal Onet.pl, worth about PLN1 billion and TVN's core television business.

In such a scenario, Time Warner could have been a likely candidate to take TVN's television business, while one or several private equity firms could have bought both Onet.pl and the television business, leaving Vivendi with the pay-TV unit only. A third person told Dow Jones Newswires no private equity firm remains in the running for TVN.

ITI is hoping to sign a sales deal for its TVN stake by the end of the year, the first person said.

Late last month, ITI Chief Executive Wojciech Kostrzewa said the deciding factor on the choice of buyer would be the price and that there was no preferred buyer at that time.

-By Marynia Kruk, Dow Jones Newswires; [phone]; [e-mail]

(Noemie Bisserbe in Paris and Marcin Sobczyk in Warsaw contributed to this article)