BURBANK FIRM WIDENS GRIP ON POST-PRODUCTION; FOUR MEDIA PLANS TO BUY POP.Byline: Dave McNary Daily News Staff Writer Four Media Co., in a major step to dominate the world of Hollywood post-production services, announced Wednesday it has agreed to buy Pacific Ocean Post Studios for an undisclosed price. Scheduled to close at the end of January, the acquisition of Santa Monica-based POP will add 300 employees to the 850 already working for Four Media and boost its annual revenues of about $100 million by $32.5 million. A spokesperson for Burbank-based Four Media, which has completed seven acquisitions since its founding in 1993, said the deal will boost profits for the current fiscal year that will end Aug. 2. For Four Media, the deal is part of its ongoing strategy to become a leading one-stop shop One-Stop Shop A company or a location that offers a multitude of services to a client or a customer. The idea is to provide convenient and efficient service and also to create the opportunity for the company to sell more products to clients and customers. for complex nuts-and-bolts technical work in the entertainment industry. The company has also invested heavily in high-powered digital equipment to offer services such as editing, mixing, language translation and the conversion of programming to technical standards used in foreign markets. ``I think POP is a very good acquisition if you think about the future of the entertainment business,'' said Furman Selz analyst Stewart Halpern, who recently issued a ``buy'' recommendation on the stock. ``POP was an early adapter A device that allows one system to connect to and work with another. An adapter is often a simple circuit that converts one set of signals to another; however, the term often refers to devices which are more accurately called "controllers. to digital technology, so the two companies are very complementary.'' Four Media Chairman Robert Walston said the POP deal will boost the company's operations in visual special effects special effects, in motion pictures, cinematographic techniques that create illusions in the audience's minds as well as the illusions created using these techniques. and television advertising, and Four Media also will be pulled into new areas, including ``virtual'' set production and code, or authoring, in the digital versatile disc digital versatile disc or digital video disc (DVD), a small plastic disc used for the storage of digital data. The successor media to the compact disc (CD), a DVD can have as much as 26 times the storage capacity of a CD. format. He said the employees will be retained and management will remain in place at POP, founded in 1984 by Sandra sandra (sänˑ·dr  ),adj Hay and Alan Kozlowski. ``We were most impressed im·press 1 tr.v. im·pressed, im·press·ing, im·press·es 1. To affect strongly, often favorably: with POP's culture of creative excellence,'' he added. Walston, who owns 15 percent of Four Media, said he plans to continue two acquisitions per year because there is a large pool of strong candidates. On Wednesday, the company also reported earnings of $225,000, or 2 cents a share, for its first quarter ended Nov. 2, up 81 percent over the year-ago period, on a 43.9 percent rise in revenues to $27.3 million. Halpern said Four Media's performance was impressive in light of the falling value of currency in Singapore, where the company operates MTV's Asian studios. Four Media's stock increased 50 cents Wednesday to $8.75. The issue went public in February at $10 a share, then was hammered ham·mered adj. 1. Shaped or worked with a metalworker's hammer and often showing the marks of these tools: a bowl of hammered brass. 2. Slang Drunk or intoxicated. Adj. down to $5.25 in April because of the disfavor with small-capitalization stocks. It has been in the $8 range in recent months. ``The company's fundamental business seems to be very strong, with a lot of upside potential Upside potential The amount by which analysts or investors expect the price of a security may increase. upside potential The potential price or gain that may be expected in a security or in a security average, generally stated as the dollar to the stock,'' said Halpern, who has a 12-month target price of $12. Three other analysts - Joan Gill gill, in weights and measures gill, in weights and measures: see English units of measurement. of Brean Murray, Alan Kassan of Deutsche Morgan Grenfell and Chris Dixon of PaineWebber - have issued ``buy'' recommendations since October. |
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