Brown buys back Frantic from Kew

The problems at Canada’s Kew Media continue to escalate, with Frantic Films the latest prodco to exit the stricken firm via a management buyout.

Jamie Brown

Frantic CEO Jamie Brown has reached an agreement with Kew to repurchase 100% of the prodco, which is behind titles such as Rose d’Or-winning comedy Baroness Von Sketch Show.

Brown has personally financed the deal, terms of which were not disclosed, which sees Frantic exit the Kew Group it has been part of since 2017.

It’s the latest firm to beat a hasty retreat from Kew following Dance Moms producer Collins Avenue, Scottish outfit Two Rivers, and London-based distributor TCB Media, which C21 exclusively revealed was negotiating a potential sale or management buyout in January that is now in its final stages.

Kew ran into difficulties at the end of 2019 when it announced that financial statements from chief financial officer Geoff Webb contained inaccurate information with regards to working capital.

Webb left Kew and internal investigations were launched. Last month, the company was forced to withdraw from the Toronto Stock Exchange when auditor Grant Thornton withdrew previously released reports on the firm owing to an “inability to rely on representations he [Webb] made to Grant Thornton in the course of its audits and review of Kew’s financial statements.”

Brown will continue to lead Frantic Films. The company’s leadership team and wider staff arrangements will also be unaffected at its headquarters in Winnipeg and its Toronto office, with current productions remaining unchanged and on schedule.

Over the past 20 years, Frantic Films has produced programming across the lifestyle, factual, reality, sports, comedy and scripted genres. Series include Backyard Builds for HGTV and The Stats of Life and Still Standing for CBC.

Brown said: “After 20 years of domestic and international production success, this marks the beginning of a new chapter for our company. We’re moving forward with an exciting current production and development slate and a new vision for 2020 and beyond.”