ChyronHego stock delisted as private equity deal closes
Johan Apel is CEO of Melville-based graphics company, ChyronHego Corp. Stock of the company was delisted Tuesday, March 10, 2015, on the Nasdaq Global Market as the company went private. It had announced those plans on Nov. 17, 2014. Credit: ChyronHego Corp.
Stock of ChyronHego Corp. has been delisted from the Nasdaq Global Market effective Tuesday. The Melville broadcast graphics company has become a subsidiary of private equity firm Vector Capital, the companies announced.
ChyronHego's shareholders approved Vector's buyout for $120 million, or $2.82 per share, at a special meeting Friday with 31.7 million shares voting in favor, 1.2 million against and 17,659 abstaining.
"The Vector team has a strong track record of success in acquiring and operating innovative technology companies, and our partnership with them will enable us to reach new levels of scale, technological capabilities and customer service," Johan Apel, president and chief executive at ChyronHego, said in a statement.
When the deal with San Francisco-based Vector was announced in November, Apel said the company's strength was tied to its Long Island roots. The company employs about 80 on Long Island, 100 nationwide and 200 globally.
"We believe that as a private company with Vector's financial support, ChyronHego will be well-positioned to capitalize on the significant opportunities in broadcast graphics creation, play-out and real-time data visualization," said David Fishman, managing director at Vector Capital, who will join ChyronHego's board of directors.
The company's technology became so widely used in the broadcast industry that the term "Chyron" became synonymous with text-based video graphics. As that business became commoditized, however, the company has diversified into additional production tools and sports tracking technology. In NBC's live broadcast of "Peter Pan Live!" in December, a ChyronHego graphics platform created the animated character of Tinker Bell.
ChyronHego was formed by a merger between Long Island's Chyron Corp. and Sweden-based Hego that closed in May 2013.
Ken Schachter covers corporate news, including technology and aerospace, and other business topics for Newsday. He has also worked at The Miami Herald and The Jerusalem Post.
