ITV

Tag: acquisition

  • Sky acquires majority stake in Blast! Films

    Sky acquires majority stake in Blast! Films

    MUMBAI: Sky has taken a majority stake in Blast! Films, the independent production company responsible for hit series The Supervet, The Route Masters and 999: What’s Your Emergency?

     

    Founded in 1994, Blast! Films is one of the UK’s longest established independent production companies and has produced award-winning films, including Hunger, Steve McQueen’s debut feature, The Channel 4 film of the opera The Death of Klinghoffer and the Bafta-winning drama Soundproof. 

     

    Blast! Films will continue to operate as a distinct company under the new ownership structure, producing programmes and films for a variety of broadcasters. Blast! Films founder and creative director Ed Coulthard and managing director Claire Bosworth will run the company with their current team. 

     

    Sky’s international distribution business, Sky Vision, will become Blast! Films’ distribution partner, and will represent new programmes and formats. Blast! Films’ existing agreements with other broadcasters and distributors will remain unchanged.

     

    Coulthard said, “Sky really gets the Blast! Films DNA. As programme makers we are passionate about quality and this is a great fit for us as we continue to evolve the company. I’m really proud of the team we’ve built here and this deal allows us to continue to attract great talent, keep raising the bar and be ambitious about what we can achieve.” 

     

    Sky Vision managing director Jane Millichip added, “Blast! Films has an incredible pedigree. Ed Coulthard is a first-class producer, and together with Claire Bosworth and team, they have a production slate that combines creative excellence with real commercial appeal. We look forward to working with them to build on their success in the UK and internationally.”

     

    Sky has stakes in several independent production companies including Jupiter Entertainment, Love Productions, and Znak & Jones, all of which partner with Sky Vision on domestic and international distribution.

  • Star India gets FIPB nod for Maa TV investment; Jhakaas & Eros proposals deferred

    Star India gets FIPB nod for Maa TV investment; Jhakaas & Eros proposals deferred

    NEW DELHI: Star India has received permission for investing Rs 2500 crore in foreign direct investment in expanding its growth in the country. The approval by the Foreign Investments Promotion Board (FIPB) includes acquisition of the broadcasting business of Maa TV – engaged in broadcasting sector on a slump sale basis.

     

    A source in Star India told Indiantelevision.com that this meant acquisition of software and liabilities of Maa TV and not a take-over of the company.

     

    As was reported by this website earlier in February, Star India said it will acquire Maa Television Network’s four Telugu channels namely Maa TV, Maa Movies, Maa Music and Maa Gold. “Star will acquire all assets of Maa TV including broadcasting rights subject to regulatory approvals. After the approvals, Maa TV will become part of Star network. We do not have any Telugu channel in our portfolio,” Star India CEO Uday Shankar had then said.

     

    Maa TV group is owned by industrialist Nimmagadda Prasad, Rajya Sabha member Chiranjeevi and actor Nagarjuna.

     

    In addition, Star India has received the nod from FIPB for further issuance and transfer of shares to its foreign collaborator.

     

    Meanwhile, the FIPB once again deferred the proposal by INX Music to undertake the additional activity of broadcasting of a non-news and current affairs channels in various Indian languages. As proposed scheme of arrangement, the 9X Jhakaas Marathi channel shall be merged into INX Music, a company which aggregates and distributes music content for TV channels, having 70.85 per cent indirect foreign investment.

     

    Additionally, Eros International Media’s proposal for making downstream investment by way of acquisition of shares of an Indian company for non-cash consideration, that is, by issuance of shares of the applicant company to the existing shareholders of the investee company has been deferred.

     

    Today Magazines Lifestyle Private Limited received approval for Rs 2.05 crore foreign investment of 49 per cent by Cooperatief International Publications Holding through transfer and further issue for an aggregate consideration.

     

    Approval has also been given to Indium IV (Mauritius) Limited through India Value Fund IV for an investment of up to Rs 200 crore in an Indian company – Atria Convergence Technologies engaged in providing internet services. The two companies together propose to invest in the capital of Atria in excess of 49 per cent up to 100 per cent by subscribing to equity or compulsorily convertible preference shares or fully convertible debentures.

  • Dentsu to acquire Polish performance marketing agency

    Dentsu to acquire Polish performance marketing agency

    MUMBAI: Dentsu Aegis Network has reached an agreement to acquire the Polish performance marketing agency Marketing Wizards.

     

    In Poland, Dentsu provides its clients with services in the digital performance domain through iProspect. Post-acquisition, Marketing Wizards will be integrated with iProspect, further strengthening its capabilities in the digital performance domain and providing even more innovative solutions through collaboration with other Group companies.

     

    Founded in 2010, Marketing Wizards is a full-service digital agency that provides marketing services such as strategic planning, SEM, SEO, digital advertising in the social domain, e-mail marketing & CRM, and creative production in the digital arena.

     

    The agency’s strengths in the digital performance domain include measurement of the causal relationship between digital advertising and consumer purchasing behavior that is linked to actual purchases, and its clients include many e-commerce companies who are focused on their businesses’ return on investment (ROI).

     

    In its March 2015 worldwide advertising expenditure forecasts, the Group’s media communications agency Carat announced that digital advertising expenditures, which are second in scale only to television advertising expenditures in Poland, rose 7.5 per cent in 2014 (2.1 per cent increase in the advertising market overall), and are expected to rise further to nine per cent in 2015 and 11 per cent in 2016.

     

    Marketing Wizards, which is headed by Marcin Pogroszewski as managing director, has 60 employees and its revenue for the year ended December 2014 stood at approximately $2.3 million (PLN 8,750,000). 

  • WB Sound acquires Digital Cinema New York

    WB Sound acquires Digital Cinema New York

    MUMBAI: WB Sound has acquired Digital Cinema New York, following its two-year relationship with the studio.

     

    The addition of Digital Cinema New York adds to the full complement of sound and picture services Warner Bros. offers in Burbank, New York, and London.

     

    “As the industry moves to a broader consolidation of picture and sound, Warner Bros. continues to expand and develop the full scope of our post production services. The volume of production in and around the New York area grows more and more robust, and we are fully committed to creatively serving the increasingly greater needs of the community,” said Warner Bros. Entertainment SVP, post production services worldwide Kim Waugh.

     

    WB Sound New York, helmed by Oscar-winning sound supervisor and re-recording mixer Skip Lievsay, provides sound design, sound supervision, sound editorial, re-recording, and ADR services at its state-of-the-art Midtown Manhattan facility (formerly occupied by Digital Cinema).

     

    “This acquisition is representative of our overall expansion of the post production services business at Warner Bros. We are pleased to meet our clients’ needs wherever they prefer to post their productions – between the greater Los Angeles, New York, and London areas, we’re truly able to creatively serve the industry at a global level,” added Warner Bros. Entertainment president, worldwide studio facilities Jon Gilbert.

     

    Lievsay’s creative team includes sound supervisor and re-recording mixer Paul Urmson, supervising sound editors Eliza Paley and Ben Cheah, and re-recording mixer Michael Barry. Recent features edited and mixed at the WB Sound NY facility include Into the Woods, Rikki and the Flash, Family Fang, Miles Ahead, and Run All Night.

     

    Warner Bros. began working from the Digital Cinema facility in May 2013. Together with Digital Cinema and Sync Sound veterans Bill Marino and Ken Hahn, Warner Bros. re-equipped the existing re-recording stage and built out eight new sound design and picture editing suites. Marino and Hahn will continue to operate Sync Sound, which was established in 1984.

     

    Warner Bros. is planning a number of significant upgrades to the Digital Cinema facility in the coming months to bring it in line with the Burbank and London locations. 

  • Jagran Prakashan receives approval from MIB for Radio City acquisition

    Jagran Prakashan receives approval from MIB for Radio City acquisition

    BENGALURU: Jagran Prakashan has informed the bourses that it has received approval from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B Ministry) today for the acquisition of Radio City.

     

    The text of the announcement on BSE reads as follows: “With reference to the earlier letter dated December 16, 2014 regarding share purchase agreement entered by the Company on December 16, 2014 with the owners of Music Broadcast Private Limited (MBPL) for acquisition of Radio City, which was subject to approval from Ministry of Information Broadcasting(MIB), Jagran Prakashan Ltd has now informed BSE that as communicated by MBPL, the approval of MIB has been received for the same vide letter dated May 28, 2015.”

     

    In December last year, Jagran Prakashan had announced that it had entered into an agreement with Radio City and was awaiting an approval from the Ministry since then.

  • Snapdeal strengthens m-commerce biz with MartMobi acquisition

    Snapdeal strengthens m-commerce biz with MartMobi acquisition

    MUMBAI: E-commerce venture Snapdeal is on an acquisition spree. After acquiring mobile transactions platform FreeCharge, earlier this year, the company has now acquired Hyderabad based mobile e-commerce platform MartMobi.

     

    With this, Snapdeal has augmented its mobile commerce capabilities by bringing onboard the MartMobi team that has created mobile specific platform and solutions for small and medium sized businesses in India and globally.

     

    MartMobi, which was founded by Pramod Nair and Satya Krishna Ganni, has core strengths in mobile technologies and has created instant mobile and tablet presence through mobile sites and native apps for e-commerce stores, small and medium sized businesses.

     

    The company enables seamless connectivity with the customers’ existing backend systems in addition to a real time analytics engine to improve conversions and user engagement.

     

    With its inclusion in the Snapdeal family, the MartMobi team will now focus on creating interfaces that enhance customer and seller experience on its mobile platforms. Realizing that the next wave of e-commerce customers are coming from mobile, Snapdeal is making substantial investments to strengthen this arm of business. The company already gets over 75 per cent of its sales via mobile-based transactions.

     

    Snapdeal was also the first company in the Indian e-commerce space to introduce a mobile application for its sellers. Around 70% of Snapdeal sellers now actively use this application to list products, manage inventory and effortlessly sell on the marketplace.

     

    Snapdeal co-founder Rohit Bansal said, “At Snapdeal, we are always on the lookout for talented people who come with special skill sets that will further enhance our capabilities. Being passionate about creating and building technology that solves real problems is another quality we look for in people. Mobile has been a key focus area for us and we have built technology capabilities to create a great experience for our buyers and sellers on this platform. The MartMobi team has built world-class products for mobile commerce, which will give a fillip to our existing mobile capabilities and we are confident that the team will further boost our mobile capabilities. We welcome them into the Snapdeal family.”

     

    MartMobi founder and former CEO Satya Krishna Ganni added, “We are very excited to become a part of the Snapdeal family. We strongly believe that new age technology innovations will happen here. The company has grown at a phenomenal pace in the last few years. With technology as the backbone, Snapdeal is solving the real challenges – of access faced by consumers and of reach faced by large and small retailers in India. Mobile is the way forward and all our efforts will be directed towards creating world class mobile technology at Snapdeal.” 

  • WPP’s Always to acquire Singapore-based marketing company 3ree

    WPP’s Always to acquire Singapore-based marketing company 3ree

    MUMBAI: Sir Martin Sorrell led WPP is on an acquisition spree. The company’s China-based field and shopper marketing unit Always Marketing Services has acquired Singapore based has integrated marketing company 3ree.

     

    Financials of the deal were not disclosed.

     

    Founded in 2010 by Tan Li Li and Isabel Cheong, 3ree offers event management, sourcing and production of marketing premiums, project management for exhibitions and activations, and design and creative services, as well as digital marketing. 

     

    3ree has implemented projects in key Asian markets, including India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, Korea and Australia. Clients include Microsoft, Mitsubishi Electronic, Seagate and StarHub.

     

    Always, which is majority-owned by WPP’s J. Walter Thompson, offers trade marketing, including merchandiser management and retail audit; retail marketing, including promoter management, in-store activation and retail environment designs; as well as shopper marketing, including point of sale design, events and road shows, as well as premium design and production. 

     

  • Nokia acquires Alcatel-Lucent for EUR 15.6 billion

    Nokia acquires Alcatel-Lucent for EUR 15.6 billion

    NEW DELHI: In a major announcement, Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent have decided to merge capabilities for enabling the next wave of technological change including the Internet and transition to the cloud. Nokia coughed up EUR 15.6 billion ($16.6 billion) to acquire Alcatel-Lucent.

     

    The new company, to be known as Nokia Corporation, will have more than 40,000 R&D employees.

     

    Alcatel-Lucent shareholders will own 33.5 per cent while Nokia shareholders would own 66.5 per cent in the new corporation.

     

    Risto Siilasmaa will be chairman and Rajeev Suri will be CEO of the new corporation. It will be headquartered in Finland.

     

    The combined company expects to target approximately EUR 900 million of operating cost synergies. The proposed company would have had net sales of EUR 25.9 billion on a FY 2014 combined basis, a non-IFRS operating profit of EUR 2.3 billion, a reported operating profit of EUR 0.3 billion, and R&D investments of approximately EUR 4.7 billion.

     

    However, Alcatel-Lucent’s Bell Labs and Nokia’s FutureWorks, as well as Nokia Technologies, which will stay as a separate entity with clear focus on licensing and the incubation of new technologies.

     

    The new company will be in a position to accelerate development of future technologies including 5G, IP and software-defined networking, cloud, analytics as well as sensors and imaging.

     

    Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia have strength in the United States, China, Europe and Asia-Pacific. They will also bring together the best of fixed and mobile broadband, IP routing, core networks, cloud applications and services.

     

    Consumers are looking to access data, voice and video across networks of all kinds. In this environment technology that used to operate independently now needs to work well together. Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent are uniquely suited to helping telecom operators, internet players and large enterprises address this challenge.

     

    The combined company’s Board of Directors will have nine or ten members, including three members from Alcatel-Lucent, one of whom would serve as vice chairman.

     

    The combined company would target approximately EUR 900 million of operating cost synergies to be achieved on a full year basis in 2019, if the deal is finalized by the middle of 2016.

     

    The combined company would target approximately EUR 200 million of reductions in interest expenses to be achieved on a full year basis in 2017.

     

    Suri said, “We have hugely complementary technologies and the comprehensive portfolio necessary to enable the internet of things and transition to the cloud.  We will have a strong presence in every part of the world, including leading positions in the United States and China.”

     

    Alcatel-Lucent CEO Michel Combes added, “A combination of Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent will offer a unique opportunity to create a European champion and global leader in ultra-broadband, IP networking and cloud applications.”

  • Publicis Groupe acquires Expicient

    Publicis Groupe acquires Expicient

    MUMBAI: Publicis Groupe has acquired Expicient, one of the leading global omni-channel services firm with significant expertise in inventory and order management systems (OMS).

     

    This is a capability that clients increasingly need to manage inventory, pricing and offers across channels for today’s connected consumer, who moves fluidly across digital and physical stores. Expicient will be integrated into the Publicis.Sapient platform under the Rosetta brand.

     

    “Today’s always-on consumer makes no distinction between devices and channels. As a result our retail clients are increasingly looking for us to build systems inventory, supply chain, omni-channel commerce that enable the experience a 2015 consumer demands. Expicient joining Publicis.Sapient allows us to significantly strengthen our client’s ability to integrate offer information, order information, inventory information and pricing information across channels, which is a significant change from a world where the on-line stores and physical stores operated separately,” said Publicis.Sapient CEO Alan Herrick.

     

    Expicient’s omni-channel Order Management Systems (OMS) capabilities and strong expertise in managed services, inbound/outbound supply chain, logistics, in-store clienteling applications and strategic technology consulting will strengthen Publicis.Sapient’s marketing, commerce and consulting offerings. In joining the Publicis Sapient platform, Expicient will be led by the Rosetta team and will contribute to Publicis.Sapient’s Global Distributed Delivery model, whereby the platform creates significant shared service capabilities accessible to all its clients.

     

    “Rosetta is perfectly positioned to lead the integration of Expicient and help accelerate the benefit for Publicis.Sapient clients. SapientNitro, Razorfish Global and DigitasLBi are all highly recognised as leaders in omni-channel commerce, and together through the Publicis.Sapient platform we are unmatched. Expicient’s impact on our total business will be significant,” said Razorfish Global CEO Tom Adamski.

     

    The announcement comes weeks after Publicis Groupe announced the completion of the Sapient acquisition and the formation of Publicis.Sapient. Publicis.Sapient is a digitally centered platform focused exclusively on digital transformation and the dynamics of an always-on world. The creation of Publicis.Sapient combines global leaders SapientNitro, Razorfish Global, Rosetta and DigitasLBi, with the deep industry expertise of Sapient Consulting.

     

    Expicient and Publicis.Sapient brands SapientNitro, Razorfish Global and Rosetta have previously collaborated on a number of global omni-channel commerce assignments with clients, including Staples, Target, Kroger, Fast Retailing, Marks & Spencer, Belk and Ralph Lauren. The agencies expect to quickly and seamlessly merge delivery capabilities and increase the value that can be offered to clients. Expicient’s capabilities will be shared across the Publicis.Sapient platform so that all clients benefit. As a result of the acquisition, Publicis.Sapient will now have the deepest OMS offering in the market, with expertise in IBM/Sterling, Manhattan and SAP/hybris.

     

    “The opportunity ahead of us, to create differentiated customer experiences is tremendous. We are living in an unprecedented time of connected consumers and commerce. For Expicient, combining forces with Publicis.Sapient will allow our teams to deliver a full range of marketing and commerce solutions while significantly expanding our global reach. We’re excited to be a part of Publicis.Sapient and to meaningfully add to global commerce capabilities already recognized as the best in the world,” said Expicient founder and CEO Darpan Seth.

     

    Founded in 2008, Expicient is based in Andover, Massachusetts, with additional offices in the United Kingdom and India (Gurgaon and Bangalore), where Publicis.Sapient also has a significant presence. Expicient serves a global roster of leading brands, including: The Aldo Groupe, Argos, Bed Bath & Beyond, BJ’s Wholesale Clubs, DHL, eBay Enterprise, Guitar Center, J. Crew, Lily Pulitzer, Lockheed Martin, Marks & Spencer, Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren, Staples, Target, Tesco and Williams Sonoma, among others.

  • ENIL to acquire TV Today’s Oye FM

    ENIL to acquire TV Today’s Oye FM

    MUMBAI: Last week, TV Today’s board approved the sale of its Radio segment-Oye FM. On 13 February, TV Today Network Ltd informed BSE that the Company had entered into a non-binding memorandum of understanding with ENIL (Entertainment Network India Limited).

     

    Commenting on the M&A, ENIL managing director and CEO Prashant Panday told Radioandmusic.com, “It fits into ENIL’s expansion plans under Phase III.”

     

    He also confirmed that ENIL will participate in the Phase III auctions. Panday said, “The acquisition is only a piece of the overall expansion strategy. We will continue to participate in Phase III auctions. The maximum limit imposed under Phase III is 56 frequencies.”

     

    After the committee meeting, TV Today Network Ltd had informed BSE that the Committee of senior officials at a meeting held on February 13, 2015, noted that the Company had entered into a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Entertainment Network (India) Limited, in relation to the proposed sale of seven radio stations to Entertainment Network (India) Limited subject to fulfilment of the contractual obligations (which may be agreed between the parties) and receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals including permissions from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.

     

    Click here to read full report