Setanta Sports to complete raising of €300m

Pay-television group Setanta Sports is poised to complete the raising of at least €300 million to help finance its acquisition of live English Premiership soccer and PGA golf rights.

The group, controlled by co-founders Leonard Ryan and Michael O'Rourke, is understood to be in the final stages of a fundraising effort which has continued for a number of months.

It is unclear whether the money has been raised from commercial or private investors or a combination of both. The company raised more than €30 million last year when investment house Benchmark Capital Europe took a 32 per cent stake in the business.

While that investment placed a value of some €100 million on Setanta, the company valuation and requirement for cash has increased radically since it won English soccer rights in Britain and Ireland and the rights to broadcast the PGA golf tour in those markets.

The PGA rights are valid from the new year while the soccer rights come good next August. These were acquired at enormous expense.

Last April the group won the rights to screen Monday and Saturday games in Britain for three years from August 2007 in a deal that cost €574 million, or more than €4 million for each of the 46 games it will screen. It later won the rights to screen one-third of all Premiership soccer matches shown in the Republic in the same period in a €40 million deal.

The British and Irish rights for the PGA golf are believed to have been acquired at a cost of some €150 million. The rights were previously held by Sky Sports.

Setanta employs 150 staff in seven channels with operations in Dublin, London, Glasgow and San Francisco. It has an Irish channel on the NTL platform, broadcasting GAA, the Scottish and English soccer premierships and Formula One motor racing.

Two of its channels in Britain on the Sky platform broadcast Scottish soccer and premier league soccer from France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands.

It also owns Celtic TV and Rangers TV.