TORRANCE, CALIF.: Remote production provider National Mobile Television has closed offices and dismissed staff, an insider confirmed. Operations in Florida and New Jersey were shuttered and 47 people were laid off March 23. Wachovia Capital Finance, NMT’s lender, issued a Notice of Public Sale of Collateral scheduled for April 3 at 10 a.m. The sale is to be held at the offices of Goldberg Kohn Bell Black Rosenbloom & Moritz, Ltd. In Chicago. Assets include those of National Mobile Television, NMT Holding Corp., NMT Media Group and Venue Services Group.
Wachovia’s notice said NMT owes $6.8 million on a loan the bank provided in November 2006.
NMT last September sold its CBS Sports contracts and two trucks to NEP Broadcasting, another of the country’s major remote production operations in Pittsburgh. NEP scored coverage for PGA Tour Gold, Masters Golf, NFL regular and post-season games and NCAA men’s games. NEP also picked up HD1 and HD12, two hi-def mobile units associated with the contracts, and their respective staffs.
NEP is owned by American Securities, a private equity concern in New York. NMT investors included majority owner Oaktree Capital Management of Los Angeles, San Francisco’s Greyrock Capital Group, South Franklin Street Partners and Candlewood Capital Partners, both of Cleveland, Ohio. Oaktree took ownership of NMT 12 years ago in a deal valued at the time at $55 million. NMT, founded in 1968, had once been a subsidiary of King Broadcasting in Seattle.
NMT generated $40 million in 1996, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal’s report on Oaktree’s acquisition of the company. The PE group predicted NMT would double or triple in size over the next five years. – Deborah D. McAdams
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