Macquarie buys BBC Broadcast for £166m

An Australian consortium has agreed to buy BBC Broadcast for £166 million and will honour a one-year moratorium on compulsory…

An Australian consortium has agreed to buy BBC Broadcast for £166 million and will honour a one-year moratorium on compulsory job cuts, it said today.

Investment fund Macquarie Capital Alliance Group and Macquarie Bank Ltd., Australia's largest investment bank, will own 65 per cent and 35 per cent of the British public broadcaster's digital media distributor, respectively, via their Creative Broadcast Services consortium.

BBC Broadcast's “playout” facilities convert content into a datastream ready for transmission. It also offers on-air promotions, subtitling, electronic programme guides and other services.

Bidders included Apax Partners, Thomson/Technicolor and Exponent Private Equity.

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The BBC, the world's largest public broadcaster, put the division up for sale in December as part of one of the biggest shake-ups in its history. It is also looking to spin off several other units, in addition to across-the-board job cuts.

BBC unions staged a one day walk-out in May to protest against Director General Mark Thompson's proposals. They agreed to call off a second 48-hour strike after management offered a one-year moratorium on compulsory redundancies and to protect staff conditions at BBC Broadcast.

The consortium said BBC Broadcast's senior management team would be retained under the terms of the acquisition agreement.