Ascent Media Group has consolidated four of its UK businesses and rebranded them as Ascent 142 while also lining up a “war chest” for further acquisitions.

The US-owned facility combines digital intermediate facility One Post, editing and sound post house St Anne's, DVD producer Stream and Wardour Street's Media Management services, all of which lose their separate identities.

The company will be situated at 142 Wardour Street, current home of the media management division.

No redundancies are expected and there is no change in Ascent 142's senior management structure, which is headed by David Barrett, senior director of business development; Simon Constable, vice-president of operations with chief technology officer Adrian Bull.

“We are expanding our services under one roof to accommodate our growing business and customers' changing needs,” said Barrett. “All of our customers will now have one main point of contact for all our services.”

Barrett denied the move marked a failure in the company's attempt to market its services under separate facility brands.

“This strategy is what we have been working toward for the past 18 months,” he said. “It was born out of frustration in seeing this sleeping giant not fulfilling its full potential.”

Two digital intermediate (DI) suites costing£2m are being built and will include two da Vinci Resolve digital mastering systems, two Autodesk Smokes, a Bright SAN and two Arri scanners.

Stream's operations have already been relocated to the building with One Post moving in toward the end of August to complete the DI on new James Bond film Quantum of Solace. The buildings no longer being used will be sublet for the time being.

Other Ascent Media subsidiaries, including Rushes, Soundelux and Todd AO, are unaffected.

The move comes ahead of Ascent Media Group's spin-off from parent Discovery Holdings Company (DHC), due later this summer. “The spin-out will help us to be a lot more flexible,” said Barrett. “The group will emerge with a zero balance sheet and a war chest for acquisitions in new technology areas.”

The group will trade separately from broadcaster Discovery Communications although it will still be controlled by media tycoon John Malone.

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