Sports broadcaster Setanta collapsed with £550m debts
SPORTS broadcaster Setanta’s British arm collapsed owing £550m to creditors including the Football Association and the Scottish Premier League, according to the final report from administrator Deloitte.
Setanta imploded last summer with outstanding bank loans of £261m and unsecured debts of £288m. Unsecured lenders will receive 2p for every pound claimed.
Setanta tried to muscle into the competitive pay sports TV market, signing up 1.2m customers. But it crumbled after securing just 23 Premiership fixtures each season from 2010/2011 and failing to get the 1.9m customers analysts said were needed to break even. When private equity backers Doughty Hanson and Balderton Capital refused to help with a £100m refinancing, the company was put into administration. Around 200 jobs were lost in the UK.
Three Deloitte administrators – Neville Kahn, Lee Manning and Nick Edwards – were appointed to liquidate the UK arms. At the time, Kahn saluted the “huge effort [made] by the Setanta board, management team and its backers,” but said it had not been possible to save the units.
The broadcaster continues in the forms of Setanta International and Setanta Ireland. A spokesperson was unavailable for comment yesterday.