ITV shares slide again

Chris Tryhorn
Guardian Unlimited
Monday November 12 2007
ITV plc's share price took another battering today, falling to a fresh all-time low.
At 86p this afternoon, the shares were off 3.6%, or down 3.1p, on Friday night's closing price of 89.1p. The price fell as low as 85.1p at one point during the day.

It is the third time in four days that the stock has fallen to its lowest level since its debut as a merged plc in February 2004.

The slump on Wednesday was triggered by the disclosure that ITV wants BSkyB to sell its 17.9% stake in the broadcaster, leading to fears that there will be a shortage of buyers if Sky's shares are dumped on to the market.

Today, the price decline was given fresh impetus by a note from analysts at Morgan Stanley, who cut their target price for the stock from 117p to 83p.

The fall in ITV's shares is also bad news for Sky, which faces a loss of more than £300m if the government forces it to sell its shareholding at the current market price.
Sky paid 135p a share - or £940m - for its 17.9% stake in November.

The Competition Commission delivered its provisional findings on the stake at the beginning of October. It is due to hand over the full report to John Hutton, the secretary of state for business enterprise and regulatory reform, by early December.

this article is important as itv has many competitors wanting to buy the channel. such as Rupert murdoch and virgin with the loss of viewers i think that itv needs to buy the sell channel so they can get more viewings.