SMG on screen

SCOTTISH MEDIA Group (SMG) yesterday paid pounds 22.2m for Pearl & Dean, the cinema advertising group.

Under the deal, SMG will acquire the 98.6 per cent of Pearl & Dean's share capital which is owned by the leading French cinema advertising group Mediavision and by private investors. The remaining 1.4 per cent of the company will be retained by another French cinema advertising operation, Cinema A.

SMG corporate affairs director, Callum Spreng, said that the group had wanted to expand into cinema advertising since 1996, but had been "biding its time" until an opportunity arose earlier this year with Pearl & Dean.

"It's a very good business and it's a national business and it fits very well with our declared intention to build our group around well traded media businesses,"said Mr Spreng.