Dick Clark Productions, the 55-year-old company that produces the Golden Globe awards show and the New Year’s Eve broadcast created by the company’s late founder, is exploring a sale of itself, people briefed on the matter said on Wednesday.
The company has hired the Raine Group, a boutique investment bank, to run the sales process, these people said. Raine has begun reaching out to potential buyers, which may include Chinese media companies and private equity firms. The company decided to pursue a sale after receiving an expression of interest from a Chinese media company, these people said.
A sale could yield a payday for the company’s current backers, the Washington Redskins owner Daniel M. Snyder and Six Flags Entertainment. Mr. Snyder’s Red Zone Capital bought Dick Clark Productions from another investment group in 2007 for $175 million.
“We have regularly received inbound interest in dcp over the last few years,” Dick Clark Productions said in a statement. “At this point, no decision has been made to enter into a transaction of any kind and it’s not clear whether any transaction will happen at all.”
The company confirmed that it had hired Raine “to help us think through our options and to organize any conversations with any interested parties.”
The sale is not tied to the death of Dick Clark in April, according to these people, because the broadcasting veteran had no ownership or management role at the company.
Instead, it is tied to the company’s court victory last month, in which a federal judge ruled that Dick Clark Productions was within its rights to keep the Golden Globes show on NBC through 2018. The company had battled with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which doles out the awards. The press association had argued unsuccessfully that Dick Clark Productions should have consulted with it before striking the NBC deal.
With its victory, Dick Clark Productions had secured one of its most valuable assets, which will help bolster what the company could fetch in a sale.
Beyond the Golden Globes and New Year’s Eve shows, Dick Clark Productions also produces “So You Think You Can Dance” and the “American Music Awards.” Other notable assets include its media library, which owns footage from “American Bandstand.”
It also owns American Bandstand restaurants and a stake in Coastal Luxury Management, which produces the Pebble Beach Food & Wine festival.