Picture Head buys The Farm from WPP
June 24, 2019
By Chris Forrester
Hollywood-based TV and studio facility company has bought London headquartered The Farm, which was owned by giant ad-agency The Farm and its two co-founders Nicky Sargent and Vikki Dunn.
This is Picture Head’s second international acquisition. The Farm was 75 percent controlled by WPP, and the disposal is part of WPP’s move to reduce its ‘non-core- businesses.
The deal is reportedly worth about £50 million. The Farm’s latest accounts, for the year to December 2017, show a pre-tax profit of £2.2 million on revenue of £28 million.
Multi-award winning The Farm, which focuses on television and film post-production, was sold by WPP and the founders. The two founders will stay involved in The Farm and will re-invest in the expanded Picture Head business.
Both founders believe that after two very successful decades, this strategic move will help Picture Head expand in the international ‘post’ market and provide an enhanced combination of technical, creative and professional excellence to the world’s best content creators.
The Farm is the UK’s largest post-production group. Founded in 1998, it has four locations in London, Manchester, Bristol, and Los Angeles. The Farm also operates the in-house post-production teams for BBC Sport, multi-channel broadcaster UKTV, and international television content company Freemantle. High profile projects have included Sky’s Riviera, the BBC’s Baptiste, and ITV’s Downton Abbey.
Having acquired The Farm, Picture Head can now claim to work with a wide range of the biggest programme content providers in the world, including Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Warner Brothers, HBO, CBS, NBC, ITV and the BBC. The expanded business can supply the full range of picture and sound post-production, VFX, content production, and other media services, in the US, the UK and Canada.