Grass Valley Sale Closes

Investment firm Francisco Partners has completed its acquisition of the Grass Valley Broadcast & Professional business from the publicly traded Technicolor, the newly independent Grass Valley announced this morning.

According to a disclosure made last July when the deal was announced, Francisco Partners is putting up no cash. Rather, it is giving Technicolor an $80 million, six-year promissory note.

For its part, Technicolor has agreed to supply $26 million for the ongoing activities of the Grass Valley, while retaining the right “to receive additional consideration based on the potential future remuneration” of the new owners. It didn’t specify how much that might be.

The deal includes only the TV production side of the business, for which Grass Valley is best known and which accounts for about three-quarters of its revenue. In 2009, the business reported losses of €52 million ($67.8 million) on revenue on €272 million ($354.5 million).

Excluded from the deal are Grass Valley’s transmission and head-end business, for which Technicolor is looking for other buyers.

Jeff Rosica is heading the new company as he did the Technicolor division. “Our goal is to deploy the most efficient, highly collaborative workflows imaginable,” he said in a letter to customers posted on the website. “Working with the new Grass Valley, you’ll find tremendous flexibility and a stronger integration than ever before across our new products. Let us show you how these benefits can enhance your mission-critical operations.

“Over the past couple of years, we’ve continued our commitment to R&D and industry-leading innovation with the rollout of a new line of K2 Summit media servers, the K2 Dyno replay system, the Kayenne Video Production Center and the Elite line of LDK cameras, to name just a few.

“And we’ve integrated our new products together with what we call Fusion, which forms a tighter and more cohesive value added solution than any other manufacturer can provide,” Rosica added.