Broadcast Facilities Buys Crawford Asset
The Wasserstein & Co. portfolio company builds out its broadcast asset and looks overseas for deal opportunities.
January 22, 2010
Broadcast Facilities Inc., the Los Angeles-based media services company partially-owned and operated by Wasserstein & Co., bought the satellite services division of Crawford Communications Inc. Terms were not disclosed.
Simon Bax, chief executive of Broadcast Facilities, said the satellite services asset buy provides the company an East and West Coast hub from which to operate as it looks to establish a global footprint.
Bax told the M&A Journal that Asia and Europe will be combed next for deal targets, in that order.
Broadcast Facilities provides mission-critical services to broadcasters, media companies and government entities including the Department of Defense, NASA, and the Centers for Disease Control.
Broadcast Facilities was formed in 2008 by Bax, Bill Tillson and Wasserstein & Co. to acquire and operate broadcast media facilities; Andrita is a California-based facility that works with a number of media networks.
Wasserstein & Co. has had a history in the media M&A world. The successor to the merchant banking arm of Wasserstein Perella had a rough go of the 90s, losing on LBOs of Gateway and Yardley Group. Its second attempt at a fund placed an emphasis on media deals; investing in Prism Business Media, publisher Hanley Wood and dozens of other real estate, business and legal publications.
Other recent media deals have come via distressed plays; Canwest Global Communications’ Canwest Limited Partnership publishing arm filed for bankruptcy protection in Canada and will be taken over by senior secured lenders. Many PE buyers have found distressed plays in print assets.
On the television side, the NBC-Comcast merger is expected to spur waves of smaller M&A as the media mega-company makes good on regulators’ calls for divestitures.
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