Slaughter and May is advising ITV plc - acquisition of UTV Limited

Slaughter and May is advising ITV plc on its acquisition of 100% of UTV Limited, which owns the television assets of UTV Media plc, for a total cash consideration of £100 million. The transaction is led by ITV's in house legal and commercial teams and is subject to regulatory and UTV Media shareholder approval.

The deal further strengthens ITV's free to air business and enables it to run a more efficient network. On completion of the acquisition, ITV will own 13 of the 15 regional licenses for the Channel 3 network and the combined businesses will benefit from ITV's continued investment in content, its advertising sales team and broadcast infrastructure.

UTV is the market leading commercial broadcaster and the most watched channel in Northern Ireland, broadcasting ITV content alongside high quality local programming. UTV Limited also owns 100% of UTV Ireland, which launched a new dedicated channel for the Republic of Ireland on 1 January 2015. UTV Ireland is already the second most watched channel in peak in Ireland and ITV intends to strengthen the channel further with ITV programming at its core.

ITV's in house legal and commercial teams are led by Andrew Garard (Group Legal Director and Company Secretary) and Tom Betts (Commercial and Acquisitions Director).