Francisco Partners, a San Francisco-based private equity firm, has made a binding offer to buy Technicolor’s Grass Valley Broadcast business.
The deal, which is expected to close later this once it passes regulatory approval, is worth an estimated $100 million.
Earlier this year, Grass Valley was reorganized into three distinct activities: broadcast, transmission and head-end. The broadcast division provides professional equipment and related services to broadcasters and teleproduction companies.
The proposed deal covers the camera, content repurposing, editing, master control, modular, news production, production automation, routing, servers, storage, and switching product lines including their entire product portfolios, the R&D centers and factories around the world, the sales and systems activities and customer support organization worldwide, as well as the management and administrative support functions dedicated to the business.
Francisco Partners said it has close to $5 billion under its management and that the firm was founded to pursue structured investments in technology and technology-based companies.
“This binding offer is a key step in the largest of the disposals we decided to make as part of the strategic refocus of our activity portfolio. This will clarify and solidify our financial profile. This is also positive news for Grass Valley Broadcast employees and customers who will benefit from the engagement of a new shareholder recognized as a leader in technology-based businesses.” said Technicolor CFO Stéphane Rougeot.