CAMBRIDGE, England (Reuters) -Jeff Zucker, the chief executive of Abu Dhabi-backed RedBird IMI, said Britain’s regulation of media and financial markets was deterring investment and holding back economic growth.
RedBird IMI bought Britain’s All3Media, the producer of hit TV show “The Traitors,” last year for 1.15 billion pounds ($1.43 billion).
It also agreed to buy Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper in 2023, but it scrapped the deal after the government intervened to stop foreign states owning newspapers. RedBird Capital Partners, one half of the joint venture, took control of the title earlier this year.
“The regulatory environment here has to change if the UK is going to continue to thrive,” Zucker said at the Royal Television Society’s Cambridge Convention on Wednesday.
He said change was not only needed in media regulation but also in London’s stock market, where IPOs are at a 30-year low.
“As we think about investing in companies that we want to grow and maybe eventually take public, London is not necessarily the place we would want to do that,” he said.
“We want to keep growing All3, we want to eventually think about bigger companies that can go public, but unless the regulatory environment and the rules around capital on the London Stock Exchange change, I don’t think that’s something we would look to do.”
Britain’s financial regulator said in July it would ease some regulatory rules to make it easier for companies to raise the money they need to grow.
Zucker said the quality of British creativity was unmatched and its content travelled globally, but regulatory impediments were stopping “us from tripling down here”.
RedBird IMI was in early talks to buy British broadcaster ITV’s Studios business, sources told Reuters in January, but a deal has not materialised.
Zucker said TV production would consolidate, but did not talk about any possible targets.
“I think there will be consolidation in this business over the long term, there needs to be,” he said.
(Reporting by Paul Sandle. Editing by Jane Merriman)
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