C4 to take stakes in fledgling indies

Details of the C4 Growth Fund are still being worked up, but chief executive David Abraham told Broadcast that the company had identified an industry need to help indies turning over around £2m per year, grow into £5m businesses.

He said that finance from banks was not often available to those companies of that size, and that C4 could help “what is essentially a one-man-band grow to something with some real infrastructure”.

He said: “We’ve sowed a lot of seeds, now we’re thinking about how we help these companies become viable.”

Abraham suggested that businesses could use any investment to hire more staff or establish an office.

The broadcaster has not yet decided the size of the fund, the number of investments it will make each year, or which individuals will administer it, but confirmed it will not spend more than £1m per producer and will only ever take a minority stake in a business.

Abraham said C4 could realise money from its investments if an indie was bought by another player, but that making a profit was not the main aim of the scheme.

He also offered clear reassurance that there would be an “arms length” procedure to ensure that indies C4 had invested in did not receive preferential treatment from the broadcaster.

It is understood C4 has had initial, positive conversations with Pact about the scheme.

Abraham said: “I wanted to seed the idea today and hopefully make some progress towards the end of the year. The idea has been looked at before, but I’m hearing there’s an investment pipeline need now, and that it will be positively received by a lot of companies.”