Shed Productions
Shed started in the UK in 1998 and is well known for shows such as Bad Girls, Footballer’s Wives, Supernanny and Waterloo Road. In 2004, a number of shareholders wanted to realise value for part of their holdings and, just as importantly, the company wanted to create a platform for funding future acquisitions.
Pioneering flotation
The obvious solutions were to merge with an existing private equity-backed independent or to seek private equity funding. However, our long experience of the independent TV production sector and our understanding of the public markets, were telling us that there was growing institutional appetite for media stocks and we recommended that Shed float on AIM.
It was the first independent TV company to follow this route. We advised management throughout, selecting a sponsor, valuing the business and timing the IPO. The transaction was highly successful, enabling the founding shareholders to sell a significant proportion of their existing shares and creating a platform for future acquisitions such as Ricochet, Wall to Wall and Twenty Twenty.
