Macrovision Backtracks On TV Guide Network Sale To One Equity Partners; Chooses Lionsgate Instead
This story was written by Tameka Kee.
The TV Guide saga continues ... Macrovision (NSDQ: MVSN) has a new buyer for its TV Guide Network and TV Guide Online propertiesLionsgate Entertainment. The TV and movie studio is slated to buy the properties from Macrovision for $255 million, the same price Macrovision had agreed to sell it to Allen Shapiro and One Equity Partners for (plus a $45 million earnout payable for the next three years) less than a month ago. That deal was expected to close on April 1, 2009.
Macrovision's CFO James Budge told the WSJ that the company went with the new deal because it seemed more certain to close: "At the end of the day, overall deal considerations were superior with the Lionsgate deal in all circumstances." This new deal is slated to close in February.
It's the latest development in Macrovision's push to shore up financially after its acquisition of TV Guide's parent company Gemstar: the company sold the print version of TV Guide to PE firm OpenCapital for $1 (and agreed to loan the firm up to $9.5 million to help continue publishing) in October. As for Lionsgate, the Journal notes that this deal just broadens the studio's cable TV footprint: it currently produces award-winning shows like Mad Men and Weeds and has a premium movie channel in the works (a JV with *Viacom*, MGM and Paramount).
By Tameka Kee