About HIT Entertainment
HIT Entertainment, owned by private equity investment group Apax Partners, is one of the world's leading independent children's entertainment producers and rights-owners. HIT's portfolio includes properties, such as Barney™, Bob the Builder™, Thomas & Friends™, Pingu™, Fireman Sam™, Angelina Ballerina™ and Rainbow Magic™. HIT represents Chapman Entertainment's Fifi and the Flowertots™ and Roary the Racing Car™ in North America and Japan, as well as Wallace & Gromit™, Shaun the Sheep™, Timmy Time™ and Aardman Classics from Aardman Animations. HIT also acts as a worldwide representative for The Jim Henson Company's library of classic family brands and as representative for The Wiggles® in the UK.
Launched in 1989, HIT's lines of business span television and video production, content distribution, publishing, consumer products licensing, live events and attractions and has operations in the UK, US, Canada, Hong Kong and Japan. HIT is a part-owner of US preschool channel, PBS KIDS Sprout℠, and international preschool channel JimJam, (outside of the US, UK and China).
For more information, visit http://www.hitentertainment.com.
Greg Dyke and Bruce Steinberg Appointed to the Board of Sunshine Acquisitions
06/01/2005New York, NY
Sunshine Acquisition Limited, the company formed by Apax Partners to acquire HIT Entertainment plc, today announces the appointment of Greg Dyke and Bruce Steinberg to its board, as non-executive chairman and chief executive respectively.
Dyke and Steinberg are expected to join Sunshine shortly. The company has just completed the £489m acquisition of HIT.
Dyke, 57, has held a number of senior positions in the television industry, most recently as Director-General of the BBC. He currently acts as an adviser to Apax on media transactions.
His previous roles include chief executive of Pearson Television and LWT plc, editor-in-chief of TV-AM and director of programmes at TVS.
Steinberg, 48, is an experienced broadcast executive, most recently he was chief executive officer of Fox Kids Europe, where he successfully oversaw the integration of the company into its majority shareholder, The Walt Disney Company.
As CEO, he was responsible for leading the growth of all of Fox Kids Europe's businesses, which currently reach 100 million households in 57 countries, including programme distribution, online and interactive and the consumer products division.
Prior to this, Steinberg was a senior executive at BSkyB, first as head of Movies, then as General Manager, Broadcasting, with oversight of all of Sky One, Sky News, Sky Movies and its Pay-Per-View operation. He was the first chief executive of UK Gold and UK Living and previously held senior positions at MTV Europe and MTV Networks.
Greg Dyke said: "I look forward to working with Bruce, a talented and experienced operator in this field. I believe he has the skills, knowledge and energy to take the company to the next stage of its development. Working together I think we can achieve great things for HIT."
Bruce Steinberg said: "HIT is a dynamic company with tremendous potential. A great deal of time and money will be spent growing and developing the portfolio of well-known and well-loved characters that Peter Orton and his team have built. I am really looking forward to working with the HIT team to continue its success as a global leader."
About HIT Entertainment
HIT Entertainment, owned by private equity investment group Apax Partners since June 2005, is one of the world’s leading independent children’s entertainment producers and rights-owners. HIT’s portfolio includes internationally renowned children’s properties, such as Bob the Builder™, Barney™, Thomas & Friends™, Pingu™, Rubbadubbers™ and Angelina Ballerina™. HIT acts as a representative for The Wiggles® in the UK, US and Canada and as worldwide representative for The Jim Henson Company’s library of classic family brands, including Fraggle Rock™. HIT also owns the Guinness World Records™ publishing and television property and Fireman Sam™, a joint venture with S4C. Launched in 1989, HIT’s lines of business span television and video production (including studios in the US and the UK), publishing, consumer products licensing and live events. With a catalog of more than 1,000 hours of young children’s programming, HIT sells its shows to more than 240 countries worldwide, in more than 40 different languages and has operations in the UK, US, Canada, Hong Kong and Japan. In 2005, the Company joined Comcast Corporation, PBS and Sesame Workshop to launch PBS KIDS Sprout℠, a 24-hour digital cable channel and VOD service for preschoolers. For more information, visit www.hitentertainment.com.
Information on Apax Partners
Apax Partners is one of the world's leading private equity investment groups, operating across the United States, Europe and Israel. Apax Partners has raised or advised approximately $20 billion around the world. With more than 30 years of direct investing experience,
Apax Partners' Funds provide long-term equity financing to build and strengthen world-class companies. It pursues a multi-stage equity investment strategy, investing in late venture, growth capital and buyouts. Apax Partners' Funds invest in companies across its 6 chosen global sectors of telecommunications, IT, retail and consumer, media, healthcare and financial/business services. For more information visit: www.apax.com.
