Image Entertainment

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Image Entertainment

Type	Public (NASDAQ: DISK)
Founded	Hollywood, Los Angeles, CA, USA (1981)
Headquarters	Chatsworth, Los Angeles, CA, USA [1]
Key people	David Borshell (President) Jeff Framer (CFO) Bill Bromiley (CAO) Rick Eiberg (CTO)
Industry	Entertainment
Products	DVD, Blu Ray, Digital Video, CD, Digital Audio
Website	www.image-entertainment.com

Image Entertainment, Inc. is a leading independent licensee, producer and distributor of home entertainment programming in North America, with approximately 3,000 exclusive DVD titles and approximately 250 exclusive CD titles in domestic release, and approximately 450 programs internationally via sublicense agreements. For many of its titles, Image has exclusive audio and broadcast rights and—through its subsidiary Egami Media, Inc. -- has digital download rights to approximately 2,000 video programs and over 300 audio programs containing more than 4,500 tracks. The Company is headquartered in Chatsworth, California.

Founded in 1981 as a public company, Image trades on the NASDAQ under the symbol DISK. Image began life as a distributor of Laserdiscs, whose sound and picture quality surpassed that of VHS and Beta, the dominant tape formats of the time. Image successfully secured exclusive output deals with major studios such as Universal Studios, 20th Century Fox, and The Walt Disney Company and grew to become the dominant distributor of the format.

As the 1990s came to a close and Laserdiscs gave way to DVD, Image re-focused on the fledgling format that would quickly come to dominate the home video marketplace. While studios were busy managing the transition from VHS to the sell-through dominated DVD world, Image began to acquire DVD rights to long-form music concert programs, television programming, foreign films and a broad array of special interest programming, all of which were being ignored by the major studios and music labels.

Image continued to work with its long term partner, The Criterion Collection, as well as hundreds of independent content producers and rights holders to bring products to the marketplace. By the DVD's 10th anniversary, Image has once again established itself as a dominant distributor of independently produced programs. In 2008 Image began to expand its release schedule to include feature films.

On November 20, 2008 Image entered into a definitive merger agreement with Nyx Acquisitions, Inc. to sell Image in a transaction valued at approximately $100 million, including the assumption of the company’s outstanding debt under its credit facility, replication advance obligation and convertible note. Under the terms of the merger agreement, Image stockholders will receive $2.75 per share in cash.

[edit] Selected releases