Raiffeisen Investment's Telecommunications, Media, and Technology team recently joined forces with the Austrian Corporate Finance team to advise Medicur Holding GmbH, a Viennese based media company, on their acquisition of 40% of Österreichische Rundfunksender GmbH (ORS), the signal distribution business of the Austrian broadcasting corporation.

In line with developments in the regulatory framework of EU media law, the Austrian national broadcaster (ORF) decided to separate its broadcast signal distribution assets from its content and programming operations by spinning off these operations into a separate legal entity. As media markets develop, the number of content providers and the types of content increase resulting in new channels and forms of entertainment which all require distribution. In order to provide transparent pricing to all new providers, the ORF created ORS as an independent company and then brought in a long term financial partner to neutralise the ownership structure and help finance the costs for the upgrade to digital terrestrial television.

ORS was incorporated in January 2005 and a tender to sell 40% was launched in March 2005 which attracted interest from financial investors and most of the leading European tower companies such as France's TDF, Retevision from Spain, and Macquarie from Australia. Medicur advanced to the final round of bidding in early July and was pronounced the winner in mid July. The sale and purchase agreement was signed shortly thereafter and closing is expected after competition office clearance.

Apart from distributing the TV and radio signals for state and private stations in Austria, ORS also operates its own satellite uplink facilities and will apply to operate the first multiplex for digital terrestrial television in Austria.