RDF execs make MBO bid

RDF Media, the UK listed production company behind Wife Swap and numerous other factual-entertainment hits, has received a cash offer from a consortium including its own executive directors.

The independent directors of the AIM-listed ‘super-indie’ – Richard Eyre, Tim Weller and Maggie Carver – today told investors that the management team of RDF had made a bid to take the company private.

An independent committee of the RDF board, including Eyre, Weller and Carver, will be formed to evaluate the proposal, which is belived to have been made by execs including CEO David Frank.

The independent directors today stressed that the MBO bid “is at a very early stage and there can be no certainty that an offer will be made or as to the terms of any such offer, should one be forthcoming.”

Speculation as to the other parties in the consortium might point to John de Mol’s investment vehicles Talpa Beheer and Cyrte Investments, through which the Big Brother man already owns around 30% of RDF. His shares in the company increased in the wake of Queengate, when its share price was low.

The MBO bid comes as RDF’s share price has been sliding over the past year, following the Queengate scandal, in which the trailer for a documentary about the Queen was misleadingly edited to give the appearance she’d stormed out of a photo shoot.

From a high of 250p last May, the company’s share price has tumbled to around 95p today. It jumped up to 130p on today’s MBO news, valuing it at around US$80m. RDF debuted on the London Stock Exchange at 144p per share.