The deal doubles the£34m price tag that The Carlyle Group paid for the broadcast and media infrastructure company last April. Additional revenue has been added to Inmedia since then however. Around£3m of business arrived when W1 uplinking facility Cast was bought from the Barnes Media Trust at the beginning of the year in a multimillion-pound dead.
Arqiva's experience and business lies predominantly in UK terrestrial and satellite transmission - it will be responsible for much of the physical infrastructure changes necessary for digital switchover. Arqiva provides transmission services for ITV, Channel 4, S4C and Five. Inmedia's business has a more international flavour, covering satellite, IP, voice and data services as well as UK direct-to-home satellite broadcasting.
NTL Broadcast was bought last December for£1.27bn by an Australian consortium led by the Macquarie Communications Infrastructure Group. The business, which has since been branded Arqiva, provides broadcast transmission, playout and tower site leasing.
Another Macquarie fund group last month won the bid to buy BBC Broadcast at the cost of£166m. The deal is currently waiting for approval from the Department of Media, Culture and Sports (DCMS).
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