International. Black Dragon Capital, the private equity firm led by Louis Hernandez Jr., has completed a deal with Belden Inc. in which it will acquire Grass Valley.
The agreement, which will be finalized during the first quarter of 2020, will transfer full control of all Grass Valley assets to Black Dragon, which plans to leverage Grass Valley's intellectual property and talent to drive innovation and lead the industry's migration to a software-based future.
There are no immediate changes planned to Grass Valley's operational management structure and Tim Shoulders will continue in his role as president.
Black Dragon founder and CEO Louis Hernandez, Jr. commented, "We see a tremendous opportunity for transformation in the media technology market and believe Grass Valley is ideally placed to lead the market through these changes. Under Belden's leadership, Grass Valley's portfolio of solutions has expanded and the business has developed a discipline that places them in the top quartile of the market in profitability Black Dragon's experience leading companies through digital transitions will enable Grass Valley to accelerate the next step in its evolution, bringing more innovative products to market faster."
In his time as CEO of Avid, Hernandez spearheaded the innovative strategy to transition the company's core product offerings to solutions that enabled simple, seamless content distribution and distribution workflows. Black Dragon, noting that today's streaming landscape needs a similar shift, sees Grass Valley as a platform to accelerate the industry's advancement toward its digital future, increasing investment in technologies and systems that enable new software-based and pay-for-services business models.
Black Dragon, unlike some private equity firms, takes an advisory approach to the companies in which it invests and offers a number of proprietary tools, such as The Black Dragon Playbook, a set of guidelines for creating sustainable, market-leading companies. In addition, the firm has an extensive roster of advisors with a combined experience of more than a century in engineering, content creation, business management and technology leadership in the media space.
"Grass Valley has led the market in the transition from SDI to IP and has been diligently shifting our product lines to cloud-based and SaaS-based solutions," said Tim Shoulders, president of Grass Valley. "Black Dragon brings the expertise and vision that will allow us to accelerate this transition for the benefit of our customers who are looking for more robust and flexible models for content production and delivery. We are excited to bring our customers with us on this journey."
Grass Valley customers investing in current product lines will experience a seamless transition. Grass Valley maintains full control of the supply chain and operating systems, allowing for uninterrupted continuous support.
