Apax Partners

Apax Partners
Overview
Industry	Private equity Venture capital
Founder	Alan Patricof Sir Ronald Cohen Maurice Tchénio
Headquarters	London, England, United Kingdom
Divisions	Herjavec Group General Healthcare Nominee Partnership LLC Apax Partners Worldwide Holdings Apax Partners US Holdings
Opened	13 August 1969 (Patricof & Co) 1970 (collaboration) early 1972 (as Multinational Management Group) 6 December 1977 (as Alan Patricof Associates) 5 November 1990 (as Apax Partners) 4 October 2002 (as Apax Partners LLP)
External links	Website
T&F Productions
Seasons	Series 9 Series 10 Series 11 Series 12 Series 13 Series 14 Series 15 Series 16
Films	Calling All Engines! The Great Discovery Hero of the Rails Day of the Diesels Blue Mountain Mystery
Other	The Adventures of Thomas (cancelled)
Company Guide
← Predecessor	Patricof & Co Multinational Management Group Alan Patricof Associates
Successor →	Seven2 (in France)

Apax Partners is a UK-based private venture capital company which purchased HiT Entertainment in 2005, during the production of the ninth series, and Calling All Engines!. In 2012, Mattel later bought HiT during the airing of the sixteenth series. Apax Partners is one of the oldest international private equity firms in the world.

History

Formation

Alan Patricof in the United States, Sir Ronald Cohen in the UK, and Maurice Tchénio first began collaborating in 1970, with Patricof founding Patricof & Co Ventures Inc in late 1969. In early 1972 Cohen and Tchénio formed the consultancy business, Multinational Management Group (MMG), before partnering with Patricof to form Alan Patricof Associates (APA) in late 1977. By 1981 the first investment groups were the Venture Capital Fund in Europe, and the Excelsior Fund in the US. The Apax Partners name was adopted on 5 November 1990. Following the acquisition and subsequent collapse of British United Shoe Machinery in 2000, both Labour and Conservative Party MPs in the British Parliament criticized Apax and called for an enquiry into pensions. Patricof & Co adopted Apax branding in 2001 with Apax also having one of the largest private equity funds, the Europe V fund, in Europe at the time, raising €4.4 billion (€7.3 billion in 2025). Apax Partners LLP established as the current iteration of the company on 4 October 2002. The French branch of the company became independent in 2006, rebranding as Seven2 in 2023.

HiT ownership

After borrowing heavily from North America, on 22 March 2005 HiT Entertainment PLC agreed to be purchased for £489.4 million (£873.7 million in October 2025) by Apax, with Sunshine Acquisitions Limited formed as the holding company for HiT under Apax, the purchase being completed by May 2005. Martin Halusa was CEO of Apax during its acquisition of HiT, during production of the ninth series and Calling All Engines!, having succeeded founder, Sir Ronald Cohen, in 2004. Former Director-General of the BBC, Greg Dyke, was appointed chairman of HiT by Apax in 2005, Dyke having been dismissed in early 2004 from the BBC as a result of the Hutton Enquiry, in which Dyke's approach to checking news stories was criticized as "defective".

Under Apax ownership, HiT switched from live-action models, which continued to be used from the ninth to twelfth series, and for The Great Discovery, to using full-CGI animation produced by Nitrogen Studios, with pre-production on Hero of the Rails and the thirteenth series starting in mid-to-late 2008. Part of the reason for switching to CGI was due to British tax breaks for animation in 2007 under Film Tax Relief (FTR), substantially reducing production costs. Especially compared to the high costs incurred in the production of the twelfth series, in which CGI was used in-conjunction with live-action models for the faces, humans and animals, and in some cases entire characters like Harold in Henry Gets it Wrong. Although facial expressions and broadening storytelling potential were also cited as reasons for the switch to CGI.

It was under the ownership of Apax that several major financial events happened concerning the Thomas the Tank Engine property, including 50% of HiT's profits originating from the US, and only 20% from the UK by 2011, additionally 80% of HiT's revenue came from Thomas & Friends, however the majority of this was from merchandise. This also indicated that by 2011, HiT's previously best performing property and flagship, Bob the Builder, had collapsed in terms of revenue, being eclipsed by Thomas & Friends. However, overall, HiT's revenue had stagnated under Apax, having only increased from £148 million (£238.4 million in October 2025) in 2004 to only £153 million (£246.4 million in October 2025) in 2009.

Apax first announced they were selling HiT in October 2010, just to the fourteenth series airing, officially listing HiT for sale in April 2011, just after the airing of the fifteenth series and during production of Day of the Diesels. Loan repayments for the investments borrowed by Apax in 2005 to obtain HiT were due in 2012, with Apax still owing $530 million USD ($763.3 million in 2025), agreeing to sell HiT Entertainment to Mattel for $680 million USD ($979.3O million in 2025) on 24 October 2011, being completed on 1 February 2012, with Series 16 beginning to air 15-days later at the earliest, in Australia.

References

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