Tuesday, ITV plc (ITV.L) said that its wholly owned subsidiary Granada Germany acquired a 51.2% stake in Berlin based TV production company, Imago TV Film-und Fernsehproduktion GmbH, with a view to expand its production, format creation and distribution businesses in key international territories.
ITV purchased the stake from Imago's founders and key creative talent Andrea Schönhuber-Majewski and Fabian Sabo. ITV said it would pay an upfront aggregate cash consideration of €2 million at completion with a further cash payment of €3.7 contingent on Imago's profit performance over a three-year period to 31 December 2010.
ITV also has a call option window post the publication of Imago's 2011 results in which it may acquire the remaining 48.8% of Imago's shares from the founders.
Imago specializes in factual entertainment programs and produces programs for German networks. The deal gives ITV the exclusive global rights to distribute and exploit content, format, and series rights retained by Imago.
The deal is expected to increase ITV's Global Content revenues to £1 billion by 2012. ITV Global Content is ITV plc's content division, bringing together all of ITV's UK and international production and distribution businesses.
Imago's two Managing Directors would report into Granada Germany's Managing Director, Jan Kromschröder.
ITV.L is currently up 0.75 p and trades at 41.75 p.
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