DHX, Entertainment One to Merge

HALIFAX, September 29: DHX
Media, the parent company of DECODE Entertainment, is set to merge with
Entertainment One, which recently took control of Oasis International and
Blueprint Entertainment, among other assets.

The deal announced today
values DHX at C$1.59 per share, for a total of C$68 million. The merger is
intended to give DHX the scale required to fully exploit its library of 2,200
half-hours of kids’ content from DECODE, Halifax Film and Studio B Productions.

Michael Donovan, the CEO
of DHX, said, "Joining forces with E1 represents the next logical stage in
the development of DHX. The enlarged group will provide DHX with access to the
U.S. and international home-entertainment markets and will offer further
distribution capabilities for our growing children’s library. The consolidation
occurring in the digital and media landscape increasingly requires scale to
compete and to exploit emerging opportunities. The enlarged group will also
offer DHX shareholders the opportunity to participate in one of the largest
fully integrated, independent content creation and distribution companies in the
world.”

Darren Throop, currently
CEO of E1, will be appointed as CEO of the merged entity, which will retain the
Entertainment One name. The DHX business will form part of the television
division of the enlarged group, overseen by Patrice Theroux, E1’s president of
filmed entertainment.

The deal is expected to be
completed by the end of December, and will be structured as a reverse takeover
of E1 by DHX.

Last week, E1 completed
the purchase of the television production companies Blueprint and Barna-Alper,
the international television distributor Oasis and the Canadian and
international distribution operations of Maximum Films. These joined the
existing assets: the U.K.'s Contender Entertainment Group and RCV
Entertainment.

—By Mansha Daswani