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Panavision buys rental company Plus8 Digital

Oct 9, 2006 8:00 AM

             

At some locations, Plus8 Digital rental customers will now have access to the Panavision Genesis and F900 cinematography cameras and assorted lenses, thanks to a new merger agreement between the two companies.

The acquisition of Plus8 by Panavision, which has been in the works for several months but was officially finalized on Sept. 29, makes Plus8 a Panavision company (and owner of all of its inventory), and is similar to Panavision’s purchase of veteran rental company Victor-Duncan, based in Dallas, TX, in 1997.

Marker Karahadian, founder and owner of Plus8 Digital and now a senior vice president of Panavision, said his customers would now have more choice from his rental inventory, there would be more locations from which to rent Plus8 Digital equipment and systems and the Plus8 in-house product development team would be expanded and merged with that of Panavision, in an effort to bring new technologies to Panavision.

Karahadian acknowledged that the new affiliation with Panavision would not affect his company’s existing inventory of Grass Valley Viper FilmStream cameras, a competitor to Panavision’s Genesis. In fact, he said that the two complemented each other. Those clients who can’t book the Genesis can rent a Viper and vice versa.

In the past year, Plus8 Digital has experienced steady growth, with a significantly increasing revenue throughout 2005 and the opening a of Toronto office. No immediate staff layoffs are anticipated at Plus8 because of the acquisition.

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