The crisis-ridden Kirch Group is considering instituting insolvency proceedings for its core business division KirchMedia following the failure of the Group's creditor banks and investors to agree to a bridging loan of Euros 150 million, according to German press reports on Monday.
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and Silvio Berlusconi's holding groups have reportedly spent the past few days drawing up the basic outlines of a restructuring plan for Kirch's empire. But the German business daily Handelsblatt reported that "the banks are demanding that the investors make at least some contribution to the capital injection that the group so badly needs, and it's unclear just how much of a commitment the investors are prepared to make".
Financial Times Deutschland reported that people attending the Tuesday meeting had suggested that the talks had been "far away" from any agreement on such a bridging loan. The loan was apparently regarded as a prerequisite by the banks for the further round of talks planned in Los Angeles with Murdoch and representatives of the US major studios on Thursday or Friday to discuss a restructuring of Kirch's film right output deals.
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