Black Dragon Capital’s acquisition of Grass Valley is not a short-term investment according to the private equity firm’s CEO.
Louis Hernandez Jr tells TVBEurope that following this week’s announcement that Black Dragon has acquired Grass Valley, the focus will be on working with Grass Valley’s leadership to ensure that it is “the clear leader in the Cloud-based media technology industry, driving the industry’s march toward its next phase.
“Black Dragon’s operational-focused model is steeped in creating market-leading companies and has no entrenched board members focused on recouping fees,” he adds. “Therefore, there is no set time horizon on this, or any of Black Dragon investments, giving the firm maximum flexibility.”
Asked what the long-term strategy is for Grass Valley, Hernandez Jr says it’s too early in the process to determine what changes, if any, will take place. “Black Dragon and Grass Valley management will conduct a thorough strategic portfolio review and determine any required strategic changes at the appropriate time,” he says.
According to Grass Valley president Tim Shoulders, the company’s customers can expect a “seamless transition”, with some necessary “minor adjustments.”
“Grass Valley maintains full control of the supply chain and operational systems, so there’ll be no disruption to ongoing support,” insists Shoulders. “Our ability to push faster innovation and drive the rollout of a wider Cloud-native and software-centric portfolio will help customers to build the agile operations they need to take on the dynamically shifting market head-on.”
Shoulders says the acquisition will help Grass Valley as it looks to evolve, enabling the company to drive faster innovation and bring products to market faster. “While the development of new solutions will be accelerated, there will be no reduced focus on existing platforms, which customers have counted on for years for their reliability, dependability and high performance,” he adds.
You can read more of our interview with Louis Hernandez Jr and Tim Shoulders in the March issue of TVBEurope.
