Grass Valley Acquired By Black Dragon Capital, Led By Ex-Avid CEO

Black Dragon Capital, the private equity firm led by ex-Avid CEO Louis Hernandez Jr., has acquired Grass Valley, formerly a Belden brand.  The move follows Belden’s Oct. 2019 announcement of its plan to divest the Grass Valley brand.

“We are excited and honored to work with Grass Valley’s leadership team, partners and resellers to take the company to the next level with a cloud-enabled, software-based business model, and cement its role as the standard bearer for the future of digital media,” Hernandez said.

Tim Shoulders will continue on as president of Grass Valley, along with his leadership team.

“We are excited about this new phase for Grass Valley. Black Dragon’s experience and vision will help us accelerate our move to cloud-based and SaaS solution product lines that will please customers seeking the most robust and flexible models for content production and delivery,” Shoulders said.

Involved in the Grass Valley acquisition on the Black Dragon team include Hernandez; Mohamed Abuagla, former EVP and CTO of Al Jazeera and Advisor; Dr. Andreas Bereczky, former SVP and CTO of ZDF Germany and Advisor; Peter Neothen, CEO of Quest Media GMBH and Advisor; Gary Bettan, CEO of Broadfield Distributing Inc. and Advisor; Sandy Nassari, Founder and CEO of Melrose Inc. and Advisor; Shengli Han, Vice Chairman of Beijing Jetsen Technology and Advisor; Frank Capria, media product specialist; and Mo Hussein, media finance professional.

The purchase price was not disclosed in the announcement, with the deal expected to close by Q1 2020, just in time for the NAB Show.

Hernandez was ousted from Avid in Feb. 2018, going on to start Black Dragon Capital. Newcast Studio