Barco Broadens its Digital Cinema Offering through the Acquisition of the XDC CineStore Knowhow
Share:
Kortrijk, Belgium, 4 March 2011 - Digital Cinema pioneer Barco has announced the extension of its digital cinema product offering through the acquisition of the CineStore activities of cinema solutions provider XDC. The acquisition fits within Barco's broader strategy to move up in the value chain from digital projection supplier to provider of total cinema visualization solutions.
XDC's CineStore team, based in Liege, Belgium, will bring profound software knowhow and in-depth market knowledge of the digital cinema business. XDC has more than ten years of experience in graphical user interface design and theater management systems for the digital cinema industry.
Last year, Barco also acquired the digital signage expertise of dZine. With the addition of CineStore, the company can now offer its customers an integrated theater management system, spanning both the theater and the lobby, while at the same time strengthening its software capabilities. Moreover, the acquisition will enable Barco to also deliver solutions for content play out.
"CineStore's activities are a strong, value-added complement to our existing digital cinema offering. Adding CineStore's skills and experience to our business will allow us to further strengthen our market position, while maintaining our key strong points of interoperability and highest image quality," says Wim Buyens, VP Barco Digital Cinema. "We stand by our strategy not to be a VPF integrator. Instead, we will remain focused on supplying visualization technologies and products for the professional digital cinema community," Buyens continues.
XDC Group CEO, Serge Plasch said: "Barco and XDC share a long history of collaboration in digital cinema. Our decision to sell the CineStore activities was prompted by our strategy to focus on service to exhibitors while becoming the leading European cinema integrator. XDC will also increase its activities in integrated cinema software solutions, network and content delivery services. Within this strategic framework, CineStore capabilities are no longer considered core business".
The acquisition of CineStore activities will be closed by the end of Q1 2011.
About XDC
XDC Group (including FTT affiliates) is the number one digital cinema company in Europe with more than 4.200 committed digital screens of which 2.000 have already been deployed. XDC HQ is based in Liege, Belgium, and provides end-to-end digital cinema solutions including equipment supply, financing (VPF, leasing, etc), training, installation, maintenance and 24/7 NOC support. The company is the first entity to have VPF digital cinema deployment agreements with all 6 major US studios Warner, Fox, Universal, Paramount, Sony and Disney for a total of 8,000 digital screens in 22 European countries. XDC Digital Content Lab offers content processing and delivery services and has been processing hundreds of different titles. XDC Digital Content Lab provides a full service including mastering, duplication, key management, 24/7 helpdesk, extranet tracking, physical/virtual delivery. Last but not least, XDC is also very active in Alternative Content by offering a full service from booking and promotion up to delivery, reporting and box office collection.
The main shareholders are EVS Broadcast Equipment (www.evs-global.com) (Euronext Brussels: EVS, Bloomberg: EVS BB, Reuters: EVSB.BR), GIMV (www.gimv.com) (Euronext Brussels: GIMB, Bloomberg: GIMB BB, Reuters: GIMV.BR) and SRIW (www.sriw.be).
More info available at xdcinema.com.
About Barco
Barco, a global technology company, designs and develops visualization products for a variety of selected professional markets. Barco has its own facilities for Sales & Marketing, Customer Support, R&D and Manufacturing in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Barco (NYSE Euronext Brussels: BAR) is active in more than 90 countries with about 3,500 employees worldwide. Barco posted sales of 897 million Euro in 2010.
For more information, please contact
JP Tanghe
Senior Vice President Barco nv
President Corporate Communication, Investor Relations and Corporate Marketing
Barco nv
Phone:+32 56/26 23 22
Fax:+32 56/26 22 62
jp.tanghe@barco.com
