Other report on TEK's troubled Grass Valley unit.. look who the interested parties are........
tvbroadcast.com
Following the report by The Wall Street Journal earlier
this week (March 29) that a majority shareholder in Tektronix was
pushing for "decisive action" with regard to the video and network
division (VND), rumors have run rampant around the broadcast and
teleproduction industries about the fate of the Tektronix Grass Valley
Products division.
Relational Investors of La Jolla, Calif., a $750 million investment fund
co-owned by the California Public Employees Retirement Systems,
has taken a 9.9 percent stake (4.59 million shares) in Tektronix. Fund
managing director and shareholder activist Ralph Whitworth stated that
he might seek a proxy fight to add new board member to Tek's board.
Under Oregon law a shareholder with 10 percent of stock outstanding
can call a special shareholder meeting. Relational Investors would
have to purchase approximately 460,000 additional shares to up their
stake to 10 percent.
While rumors have circulated that the old Grass Valley Group had
already been sold, that is not the case. As a publicly held company,
Tektronix would have to file papers with the Securities and Exchange
Commission within 24 hours of such a sale. No papers have been filed.
It is well known that Jerome Myers, Tektronix chief executive office and
the board of directors has been displeased with the performance of
VND since 1996. Mr. Myers has said publicly that "we're losing
patience" with VND.
According to Tektronix spokesperson Heather Wyse, the company
plans to make a decision regarding VND in the next 30 days. Possible
scenarios include (but are not limited to):
Selling VND, which includes Grass Valley Products
Spinning off VND into a separate company
An employee buy-out of the division
Maintaining VND as it currently is
Ms. Wyse says that Tektronix has no plans to shut down Grass Valley
Products, but that Tek's board is actively pursuing various options. This
comes at a time when Grass Valley Products is scheduled to celebrate
their 40th anniversary at NAB, with a cake cutting ceremony on Monday
April 19 at 5:00pm at their booth in the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Industry experts agree that the two most likely scenarios are either
VND being sold or spun-off. Potential buyers that have been mentioned
are Accom, Panasonic Broadcast & Digital Systems Company, Philips
Digital Video Systems and Pinnacle Systems. Experts agree that
Pinnacle Systems appears to be the best match as their current
product offerings are the least competing systems to other companies,
in direct competition with Avid. Last fall, Tek signed an alliance with
Avid and discontinued the Lightworks line as part of a corporate
restructuring of VND.
The suit charges that that decision, and misleading information fed to
the small company up until the announcement, destroyed Digital
Images' business. The suit accuses Tek executives, including former
VND president Lucie Fjeldstad of misrepresenting Lightworks' future
and strategic importance to Tek and failing to deliver system upgrades.
According to reports, Digital Images continued to focus on the
Lightworks system and to steer customers away from Avid.
Digital Images is seeking a jury trial and punitive and other damages
under the Sherman and Clayton antitrust acts. Wyse says that the suit
is without merit.
NAB '99 Exclusive
Avid Unity: A New Media Network for
Postproduction
videography.com
Unity is based on a server-assisted architecture supporting
a full file-level-locked storage subsystem where multiple users can access media files
simultaneously and transparently. Workstations can access this tower of storage without any
need for local storage. In my opinion, Unity is an NAB '99 must-see.
Could someone in the biz read this article and answer a Q) Is this FC based SAN, or just a server and some storage? Thanks in advance..
|
