Masstech to acquire PlayBox

Masstech said it had signed a letter of intent to acquire the products and technology of channel-in-a-box firm PlayBox.

The shareholders of PlayBox will continue to own and operate the company’s system integration, support centre and worldwide distribution through its eight offices in Europe, Asia and the United States, and their associated reseller networks.

“The success of Masstech’s solutions and the dynamic changes being driven by consolidation in the broadcast market signalled to our shareholders, who represent some of the largest venture capital and private equity firms in Canada, that now is the right time to make strategic additions to the Masstech product portfolio,” said Masstech chief executive Joe French.

“Adding PlayBox enables us to extend the Masstech platform to create the first fully integrated broadcast environment that includes playout and graphics within the asset management system. 

“Our partnership with PlayBox will also significantly expand the worldwide distribution of Masstech’s products and solutions through the PlayBox network.”

The company said the expanded Masstech system will see assets managed by an open platform across the broadcast chain, including ingest, production, and transmission, and embracing legacy infrastructure across all popular editing, automation and playout systems.

French added: “We at Masstech believe that controlling all of the component technologies is the key to enabling both a fully integrated solution and a price point that aligns with and supports the business models being adopted by forward thinking broadcasters.

“This agreement springboards us past the inherent inefficiencies of fragmented, multi-vendor products and creates a single source solution that best matches the needs of our end users.”

PlayBox Technology’s founder and chief executive Vassil Lefterov said the company had been “looking for a strategic partner for a long time”. 

He said: “This is a very exciting opportunity for our business that we believe will have an important impact on the broadcast industry, while also expanding our product offering for managing our customer’s media assets.

“PlayBox products and knowledge are extraordinarily complementary to Masstech’s and we see tremendous synergies between the two brands.

The acquisition is expected to close in May 2014.

The two companies will exhibit together at NAB.