Good Deal for Crawford
Good day at the office for Crawford last week, selling their satellite division to BFI for $100 million:
Broadcast Facilities Incorporated, a media services company owned by the private equity firm Wasserstein & Company, said on Thursday that it had purchased Crawford Communications‘ satellite services division, bolstering its presence on the East Coast.
The terms of the deal, which was the first by Wasserstein & Company since the death last fall of Bruce Wasserstein, founding partner, were not disclosed. But a source close to the transaction told DealBook that the sale was valued at more than $100 million.
Buying the Crawford division, which provides services like television origination, and production and satellite uplink equipment, will build upon B.F.I.’s existing Andrita Media Center, a big television and online media production facility on the West Coast.
Among the clients of the newly combined company are ABC, NBC Universal, ESPN, MGM and government agencies like the Defense Department.
“We are very pleased to bring these two market leaders together to create a company that is ideally positioned to take advantage of current market dynamics, including the proliferation of channels, the transition to HD and the desire of broadcasters to outsource facilities to reduce fixed costs,” Ellis Jones, B.F.I.’s chairman and the chief executive of Wasserstein & Company, said in a statement.
Can you still make money as a teleport? We’ll see about that.
