Blue Ant Media has announced an $89-million deal to acquire Thunderbird Entertainment, a global production and distribution company. The transaction is aimed at expanding scale, strengthening long-term earnings and enhancing opportunities for new IP and international growth.
BNN Bloomberg spoke with Michael MacMillan, CEO of Blue Ant Media, about how the acquisition is expected to support the company’s strategy, including cost synergies, expanded production capacity and a broader content portfolio.
Key Takeaways
- The $89-million deal expands Blue Ant’s financial and operational scale to support long-term growth.
- Blue Ant expects about $7 million in annual cost synergies from eliminating overlapping public-company costs.
- The transaction includes cash and shares at a 28 per cent premium to Thunderbird’s 45-day VWAP.
- Thunderbird adds production, distribution and rights-management capabilities that strengthen Blue Ant’s content portfolio.
- The acquisition is positioned to enhance earnings, cash flow and international brand-building opportunities.
Read the full transcript below:
MERELLA: Blue Ant Media will acquire global production and distribution company Thunderbird Entertainment in a deal worth $89 million. Blue Ant aims to expand its financial and operational scale. Let’s bring in Blue Ant CEO Michael MacMillan. Thanks for joining us today.
MICHAEL: Pleasure to be here. Thank you.
MERELLA: So Thunderbird creates content. Can you outline what sparked your interest in the company? Was it specific content that caught your eye?
MICHAEL: Well, they’re a terrific producer of animation and kids’ shows, as well as live-action adventure shows. Our company went public on the TSX in August of this year through a reverse takeover of a company called Boat Rocker. At that point, we greatly strengthened our balance sheet. So very much on our minds was to grow Blue Ant through both internal growth and acquisition, and we thought Thunderbird was a great fit. We’re paying for it in cash and stock, and it’s a highly accretive transaction for our shareholders. So that was very attractive to us.
MERELLA: Was there certain content that you think will be an immediate fit, or are you looking to expand the themes of your content?
MICHAEL: It’s an ongoing thing. There’s not one particular show or one particular series that caught our eye. It’s their production capacity, their earnings capacity and their cash-flow generation — all the things that we would look to build at Blue Ant.
MERELLA: Remind us a little more — and you touched on this — about the longer-term strategy here. How does this agreement work into that broader goal?
MICHAEL: Blue Ant is a program creator and international distributor, and we also own streaming channels in Canada, the U.S. and internationally. Central to our business idea is our production and acquisition of interesting programming content that we can sell or rent to others around the world, and that we can also use on our own channels, both in Canada and internationally. So anything that fuels our capacity to produce and acquire more interesting programming, or increases our capacity to build out our channels internationally, is very interesting to us. Thunderbird fits that bill, and it does so in a financial way that is accretive to our shareholders.
MERELLA: Talk to me about the return on investment from this deal.
MICHAEL: Thunderbird is a profitable business today. One of the ways we’re going to improve our investment is because there’s a significant overlap in public-company costs. Thunderbird is public; we are public. We believe we can extract $7 million of cash cost savings on an annual run-rate basis beginning very quickly after closing the transaction. So as well as inheriting their earnings and cash flow, we believe we can improve the bottom line — or the EBITDA line, anyway — by $7 million a year, just by taking out those duplicated costs.
MERELLA: Does Thunderbird give you any new partners to work with?
MICHAEL: It does. Thunderbird has built a great reputation for producing animated shows for a number of international customers, including Disney, Lego, Marvel and others. So it does expand and reinforce our roster of clients internationally.
MERELLA: What’s next for Blue Ant? You did Magellan, you have Thunderbird — what’s coming next? What are you looking for these days?
MICHAEL: Our strategy is a bit of a balance between the business of producing and distributing TV programming and building out our international channel base. The acquisition of MagellanTV, which you mentioned, which we acquired in October of this year, was a good example of that. It’s an international streaming platform. It’s a subscription video-on-demand enterprise, as well as a number of free channels that contain ads. We’re going to continue to build out our international global channels and streaming activity by building or buying more international streaming platforms along the lines of Magellan. We’re also looking to acquire existing libraries or catalogues of programming that would fit into that strategy.
MERELLA: Should we expect any other announcements before year-end?
MICHAEL: I never say never, but there’s nothing planned before year-end.
MERELLA: Got it. Michael MacMillan, thank you for joining us today. Michael is CEO of Blue Ant Media.
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This BNN Bloomberg summary and transcript of the Nov. 26, 2025 interview with Michael MacMillan are published with the assistance of AI. Original research, interview questions and added context was created by BNN Bloomberg journalists. An editor also reviewed this material before it was published to ensure its accuracy and adherence with BNN Bloomberg editorial policies and standards.
