Ericsson completes acquisition of Red Bee Media
Announcement posted by Ericsson Australia 13 May 2014
· Ericsson welcomes 1,500 new employees to its growing broadcast services business
· Expands list of high-profile broadcast services customers
· The UK becomes a major global media hub for Ericsson
Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) has completed its acquisition of Red Bee Media, a leading media services company headquartered in the UK, from Creative Broadcast Services Holdings – an entity controlled by Macquarie Advanced Investment Partners, L.P.
Ericsson announced its intention to acquire Red Bee Media on July 1, 2013, and the UK’s Competition Commission formally cleared the acquisition on March 27, 2014.
Ericsson looks forward to working with Red Bee Media’s extensive list of high-profile broadcast services customers, including the BBC, BSkyB, BT Sport, Canal Digital, Channel 4, EE, UKTV, UPC, Virgin Media, and many more.
In addition, Ericsson has gained 1,500 highly skilled employees as well as media services and operations facilities in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Australia. This will further strengthen Ericsson’s broadcast services business, which began in 2007 with the signing of the first broadcast services deal with C More (formerly Canal+) in the Nordic region.
Magnus Mandersson, Executive Vice President and Head of Business Unit Global Services at Ericsson, says: “We’re very happy to welcome our new employees to Ericsson and are confident they will help to take our broadcast services business to the next level and extend our global presence. We now have more than 5,000 employees in the UK and close to one-third of them work in broadcast services. As a result, the UK is now a major global media hub for Ericsson.”
Every day people on all continents watch television programs prepared, managed and broadcast by Ericsson.
Ericsson has a significant heritage in the global TV and media market and, in the UK, pioneered the video compression technologies that are driving the worldwide digitalization of TV and enabling new viewing experiences – such as HDTV, TV Anywhere and UHDTV. Ericsson’s strategy in TV and media is to help content owners, broadcasters and TV service providers evolve to meet consumer demands for video experiences on any device, anytime, anywhere. Ericsson recently highlighted its view for the future of TV in its Media Vision 2020.