Lyceum Capital portfolio company Compact Media Group, an independent rights administrator and distributor of royalties for TV, film and music, has acquired its first add-on company Rights.tv, a leading consultancy that provides business affairs and commercial guidance.
Backed by Lyceum in October 2010, Compact provides a broad range of collection and administration services which maximise royalty income for intellectual property rights owners such as producers, distributors and broadcasters, as well as government-backed agencies and financial institutions.
Since Lyceum’s GBP17 million investment, the mid-market growth investor has implemented a programme of operational enhancement and organic growth, resulting in a number of new client wins and the identification of complementary acquisition opportunities.
This first deal sees Compact acquire Rights.tv, a leading consultancy that provides media clients with business affairs and commercial guidance, offering advice at all stages of production from creation and development through to financing, production, distribution and exploitation of rights.
Rights.tv also offers day-to-day commercial and strategic consultation to growing production companies as well as advice on co-productions, raising finance and programme exploitation. Clients include Shine Group, Impossible Pictures, Wide Eyed Entertainment, Icon Films, Blink, Fresh Productions, HoHo Entertainment, Arlington Enterprises and MoMedia.
The acquisition enables Compact to extend its extensive range of services and provide advice from legally-qualified consultants around the documentation of TV production relationships and ongoing contract management.
Dan Adler (pictured), Partner at Lyceum, says: “Following the Terms of Trade agreement in 2004, rights deals have become increasingly complex, which means the need for expert business affairs has become more acute for producers.
“Rights.tv is an excellent strategic fit, providing high value services in the business affairs market and allowing Compact to offer its client base access to these specialist services. It’s these sorts of complementary acquisitions that we’ve been looking at since our investment and will continue to seek to further expand Compact’s core offering.”
