LONDON, UK: The Vitec Group (LON: VTC) agreed to acquire Savage for up to $57.3 million in cash, including retention, transaction and financing costs. Completion is expected by the end of November 2021.
Savage is a global market leader in backgrounds for the growing professional studio photographic market. Savage will become part of Vitec’s Imaging Solutions Division.
Vitec Group is uniquely placed to drive commercial synergies and help the Savage business grow.
Stephen Bird, Group Chief Executive, commented: “A key part of the Group’s strategy is to invest in businesses exposed to faster-growing segments of the content creation market. Savage gives the Group a leading position in the growing global backgrounds market, which is the largest consumables product used by professional studio photographers.
This gives us more frequent contact with our customers as well as more of a regular repeat purchase revenue stream.
Vitec Group is the natural home for this well-respected brand as we know the market and their business extremely well. We are uniquely positioned to drive significant growth and commercial synergies by leveraging the Group’s global distribution channels to develop Savage internationally, by expanding their customer base to capitalise on the fast-growing vlogger, influencer and gamer market already served by our JOBY brand, and by using our digital expertise to sell Savage products online.
This is a hugely complementary and financially attractive, bolt-on acquisition in a classic Vitec niche. I am delighted to welcome the Savage team to the Group.”
Based in Phoenix, US, Savage is a global market leader in backgrounds for the professional studio photographic market. Trusted by creative professionals, Savage manufactures an extensive range of high quality, specialist, seamless paper backgrounds, or backdrops.
Backgrounds are a key aspect of imaging production as they are the quickest and easiest way to achieve the desired look for commercial and product photography, portraits, video interviews and social media posts, and they dramatically reduce post-production time.
Despite advances in technology, we believe that backgrounds will remain the preferred solution for the foreseeable future.
Savage’s pro forma results for the year to 31 December 2020 were $24.0 million (£17.9 million) revenue, $4.7 million (£3.5 million) EBITDA and $3.8 million (£2.8 million) profit before tax. The business has grown both revenues and EBITDA materially in 2021 year-to-date. Given the timing, the acquisition will have a negligible effect on Vitec’s revenue and adjusted profit before tax for FY 2021.
Vitec is a leading global provider of premium branded hardware products and software solutions to the growing content creation market.
Leave a Reply