By Dayan Candappa
DUBAI (Reuters) - Dubai's Istithmar will decide in the next month on whether to buy a controlling stake in a $4 billion Western European media company, the chief executive of the government-owned investment agency said on Sunday.
Istithmar, which plans to invest as much as $3 billion this year, first said it was considering a European media acquisition in October. That investment is among six-to-eight deals Istithmar is working on, Chief Executive David Jackson told the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit in Dubai.
"If we can't make something happen in the next month I think we would kill it," Jackson said, declining to name the company or give details.
Istithmar has yet to begin due diligence on its target and the fluctuating value of the investment was among factors holding up a decision, Jackson said.
"Our view of what would be the fair value for it has changed a couple of times in both directions," he said.
The European media investment was among three Jackson identified in an interview with Reuters in October. The others were a controlling stake in a $2 billion North American consumer firm and the European manufacturing unit worth $1 billion.
The latter was a reference to Istithmar's failed bid for a stake in Ford Motor Co.'s (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) British Luxury car unit Aston Martin, Jackson explained on Sunday.
Ford sold the Aston Martin stake this month for 479 million pounds to a group fronted by former Benetton motor racing boss David Richards. The group included Kuwait's The Investment Dar Continued...
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