[THE INVESTOR] CJ O Shopping has acquired the entire shares of its Mexican 50:50 joint venture Televisa CJ Grand, according to industry sources on April 13.

South America’s top media group Televisa reportedly signed a contract to hand over its stake to CJ O shopping in February this year for around 5.1 billion won (US$4.76 million).

Korean home shopping operators usually enter foreign markets with a local media group as it is otherwise difficult to launch and operate a channel. Having stabilized operations of its current channel the Korean firm decided to obtain all the rights. Televisa had no objection since it is seeking to reorganize its business portfolio and focus on a few of its main businesses, sources said.

Before the acquisition, CJ O Shopping was responsible for managing the home shopping contents and Televisa took care of managing the channel and local marketing. The JV was established in 2015.

With this acquisition, the company plans to further expand its business in South America and start making profits. Televisa CJ Grand has been seeing an annual operating loss of around 6 billion won on average over the last three years.

By Song Seung-hyun (ssh@heraldcorp.com)