Consortium eyes up resilient Shed Media

SHED Media, the television content creator and distributor founded by Scot Eileen Gallagher, yesterday said talks over a potential sale were "advancing", as it revealed that profits had held up during a tough year for the broadcast sector.

It said negotiations were ongoing with its takeover suitors – a buy-out consortium made up of Bowmark Capital, Darwin Private Equity and members of its management team.

All have previous experience in the media sector. Bowmark owned a 20 per cent stake in Wife Swap maker RDF Media until 2005, and Darwin was a previous investor in production and distribution firm All3Media.

Shed – the maker of hit television show Supernanny and producer of the Oscar-winning documentary Man on Wire – held underlying profits for the year to 31 December at 12 million, compared with 11.9m in 2008. Turnover rose 13.1 per cent to 92.6m.

The firm said it had launched a new drama series, Garrow's Law, while growing business in the US by 56 per cent in terms of programme hours. That included making the American version of its British series Who Do You Think You Are?

Shed – owner of production houses Wall To Wall, Twenty Twenty and Outright – said the broadcast market "continues to be nervous", with commissioning still under pressure in the wake of one of the industry's worst advertising slumps.

However, it noted that this year had started well despite the market being hit by cutbacks. It already has 64 per cent of targeted production revenue commissioned and 68 per cent of targeted intellectual property gross profit secured.

Chief executive Nick Southgate said: "Whilst the UK commissioning environment remains challenging, we see some improvement in the global market for our intellectual property and we expect to continue to capture market share in the US."

Four directors, including Southgate, own almost a third of the business, valued at 68m.

The company maintained its final dividend at 1.25p.