Foreign Exchange: Reflections on the Grundy Buy-out

Abstract

The 1995 sale of Grundy Worldwide co the UK-based Pearson group raises some interesting questions around broadcast television both in Australia and elsewhere. Until the last decade, Australian television production companies were mostly immune to takeovers and buy-outs. Local program packagers were proprietary companies, invariably under-capitalised and owning little in the way of capital assets. The pattern for these companies was not sale or takeover - more commonly the fate of television stations and networks - but rather a cessation of operations when they could no longer sell new programs. One important exception to this rule was Crawford Productions. Between 1985 and 1989 Crawford Productions changed hands three times and none of the Crawford family are now associated with the company. At the time of the second sale of the company, to Ariadne Developments in 1987, there was a suggestion that Ariadne intended to open a theme park on the Gold Coast that would feature various spin-offs from successful Crawford television series. This project gives a clue to some of the assets that changed hands in the Pearson buy-out.