27-05-2009

ATM Grupa expands on Polish market

By Katarzyna Grynienko

    TV production company ATM Grupa has bought 100% of Baltmedia, one of the most successful Polish producing companies.

    ATM Grupa (www.atmgrupa.pl), the biggest independent television producer in Poland and the only industry player listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, paid 2 million PLN ( €450,000) to incorporate Baltmedia (www.baltmedia.com) into its structure.

    Baltmedia will be managed by two-person a board including Krzyszof Grabowski, the previous co-owner of the company and Przemysław Kmiotek, the ATM Grupa representative and the producer and co-producer of Polish editions of hit shows such as Big Brother and Bar. Grabowski has produced several hit series in Europe as well in Poland including the mini series War and Peace, a film about Jean Paul II starring Jon Voight, and Ojciec Mateusz (Father Mathew), which became one of the most watched Polish series last year with over 6.65 million viewers.

    "The purchase of another producer company is an element of our strategy. We have been systematically consolidating our position on the market for years. Thanks to the acquisition of Baltmedia company we gain a professional crew that we will be producing with, among others, the new episodes of Ojciec Mateusz. Moreover, the company is currently working of two new projects, that we hope to be spectacularly successful," Tomasz Kurzewski, the Chairman of the ATM Grupa Board, said in a statement.