Hat Trick looks ahead after City deal

UK indie Hat Trick Productions is looking to expand further into new genres like animation and drama, following the sale of a minority stake in the company to City investors for £23million.

{There's no grand plan but the sale will allow us to continue in directions we are already going,{ Hat Trick joint md Denise O'Donoghue told C21. {We'll also be able to set up more joint-ventures – for instance, a talent agency or other non-programming arms. The deal will allow us to be more adventurous in our buy-and-build strategy.{

Have I Got News For You producer Hat Trick already has a 50% stake in 12 Yard, a format house set up with ex-BBC light entertainment boss David Young. Another jv called Gasp has been set up with Goodness Gracious Me comedy writing trio, Anil Gupta, Sharat Sardana and Richard Pinto.

{After less than two years, 12 Yard is already making £8m a year,{ said O'Donoghue. {With our joint-ventures, we team up with incentivised talent and they can piggy-back our production deals with broadcasters.{

Traditionally active in comedy and entertainment, O'Donoghue pointed to animation as one genre that Hat Trick has expanded into recently. {We're developing a 13-part series for Channel 4 called Streatham Hill,{ she said.

The show, about a girl from the eponymous South London suburb, is being written by Sardana, Pinto and Richard Osman and is being coproduced with Canada's Decode Entertainment.

Under Mark Redhead, Hat Trick's move into drama is well established, with several new series in production. Jed Mercurio's NHS drama Bodies (6×60') and In Denial of Murder (2×90'), a dramatisation of the Stephen Downing false imprisonment case, are both destined for the BBC, while Scrummy Mummy is also in development.

More comedy is a given, with Gasp behind BBC1's Trevor's World of Sport (6×30'). Airing from August, the Neil Pearson vehicle centres on a sports agent and features cameos from real sports stars.

Also destined for BBC1, The Worst Week of My Life is another half-hour comedy series currently in pre-production, starring Ben Miller and Sarah Alexander. Meanwhile, Simon Peg's pub quiz show Triviata is also being piloted at Channel 4.

Internationally, Hat Trick has previously coproduced Whose Line is it Anyway? for US network ABC, while the US remake of The Kumars arrives on Fox this autumn, renamed The Ortegas. An American remake of Hat Trick's Father Ted is also being developed to pitch to US networks this autumn.

Elsewhere around the world, The Kumars is in the process of being reversioned for Israel, Holland and Germany, with an Australian version already on air, entitled Greeks on the Roof.

Hat Trick's expansion out of its comedy and entertainment core comes as City venture capital firm Kleinwort Capital Trust buys a 45% stake in the production company for £23m. The deal sees O'Donoghue and fellow md Jimmy Mulville pocket around £11m each, while commercial director Hilary Strong gets a smaller amount.

{It's the first time the City has paid such a substantial amount for a minority stake in a TV production company,{ said O'Donoghue. {It says a lot about the sector. We're still very keen to run the company but we'll now have the financial expertise of Kleinwort.{

O'Donoghue, Mulville and Strong still retain 55% of Hat Trick, which made £4m profit last year, on a revenues of £20m. The plan, according to Kleinwort Capital, is to grow the business and sell up in around three-to- five years, likely to a US company.

The Kleinwort deal is seen as the first of many City buys of TV indies, as the UK's new Communications Bill gives them rights to their own shows.