Cinar sale talks take a dive

Serious negotiations to tie-up a sale of Montreal-based toon house Cinar Corporation have broken down, with a piecemeal sell-off now looking increasingly likely.

While the company would not reveal which entity it had been negotiating with, a recent terse statement from Cinar did state that: {…discussions with a party with respect to a transaction involving certain of the company's assets have terminated.{

Mainstream Canadian press has long been reporting that UK-based Gullane Entertainment was rumoured to be the interested party looking to pick up either all or part of Cinar’s assets, but that talks fell through due to either a failure to secure adequate financing on Gullane's part, or in-fighting within the Cinar board of directors.

Louise Sansregret, Cinar’s vp of investor relations, would not enlarge on which company had been in the negotiations, or the reasons behind the breakdown in talks, but she did tell C21 that efforts to make a sale in the future have not been stymied because this deal did not gel.

{The talks have collapsed, but we are going ahead. The investment bankers are going to be talking to other parties, and the party that was interested might even come back,{ she said.

Analysts believe that the Cinar holdings, estimated at some C$400m ($250m) will most likely be sold off in stages, rather than having a single buyer come in to acquire the company in its entirety.

Cinar assets likely to be sought after include its successful entertainment division – producer of hit animated shows such as Arthur, Caillou and Mona The Vampire, and the company’s profitable education unit, as well as its minority interest in Canadian speciality cartoon channel Teletoon.