Last November, Vizrt Ltd., a provider of real-time 3D graphics and asset management tools, announced that it had agreed to purchase the assets of Mosart Medialab AS, a broadcast automation vender, and add it to Vizrt’s newsroom production workflow product portfolio. Vizrt has now completed its financial and legal due diligence and has reached a definitive share purchase agreement with the shareholders of Mosart. The agreement includes all of the issued and outstanding share capital of Mosart.
As a result of that agreement, Vizrt will purchase all of the issued and outstanding share capital of Mosart, on a fully diluted basis, for a cash consideration of approximately $17.7 million. Vizrt anticipates the acquisition of Mosart to officially close by March 11, 2014. Mosart currently has 24 employees, who will remain in their current positions and Mosart will continue to operate autonomously.
While the two companies have successfully worked together in the past to help customers implement highly automated, file-based newsroom and production facility workflows for broadcasters in Europe and elsewhere, Vizrt’s decision to purchase the technology and assets of Mosart and its field-tested Newscast Automation platform will tighten the integration across both companies’ product lines and make for a more reliable, responsive and easy to implement platform for all involved.
Both companies said their combined resources will result in a turnkey package of production, distribution and automation software that will support a wide variety of streamlined workflows whereby Vizrt’s Viz Engine—a real-time graphics compositor and template-based production platform—and other IP-based production software tools will now be under the close control of the Mosart MediaLab automation system technology. This will make the creative process for news departments faster and much more efficient. It will also allow a single operator to run an entire newscast from a computer keyboard.
The idea is to simplify production for all involved, according to Vizrt Chief Technology Officer Petter Ole Jakobsen, getting news content on-air faster and with better reliability.
“The proposed joining of forces will not just add products to our portfolio,” Jakobsen said at the time of the initial announcement to buy Mosart, “but also will enable us to develop new integrated products and workflows that have the potential of being highly disruptive for the broadcast technology market. Integrating Mosart's technology with Viz Engine, for instance, would offer the market a very powerful and efficient TV-in-a-box solution.”
Mosart helps broadcasters streamline their workflow, automating a number of TV production tasks through software solutions that enable and simplify the creation of increasingly complex productions through a common software interface. The Mosart Newscast Automation system takes input from the newsroom computer system, controls systems and devices, and allows the operator to maintain control of both regular broadcasts and unpredictable breaking news events.
Martin Burkhalter, CEO of Vizrt, said, “We expect to realize important synergies from this acquisition, both in terms of innovation and in terms of our ability to grow our business. The combination will allow for important and disruptive innovation, and allow Vizrt to address new markets, generate future growth and create value.”
John Kjellevold, managing director at Mosart Medialab (who will continue in that role), said that once the acquisition is complete, Mosart will leverage Vizrt's extensive international sales and support organization, as well as its strong reputation and brand recognition, to expand its customer base.
Vizrt said it expects to realize a number of important synergies through the acquisition, both technologically and commercially.
