Nine Entertainment buys out HBO's stake in Quickflix

The Australian video on demand service has confirmed that Nine Entertainment Company has bought out of all HBO's Quickflix shares.

Nic Healey Senior Editor / Australia

Nic Healey is a Senior Editor with CNET, based in the Australia office. His passions include bourbon, video games and boring strangers with photos of his cat.

See full bio

Nic Healey

July 20, 2014 10:37 p.m. PT

In a statement to the ASX Quickflix has confirmed that Nine Entertainment, owner of the Nine Network, has bought out the entirety of HBO's shares in the company.

The deal means that Nine now owns all of the 91,165,092 redeemable convertible preference shares previously held by HBO. The price for the shares -- around an 8 percent stake in the company -- was reportedly valued at AU$1 million.

The news comes on the back of recent reports of Nine's own move into the video on demand market. Media site Mumbrella reported back in April that Nine had made "key appointments" to its subscription based VOD service called StreamCo.

More recently, Graham Burke, co-CEO of Village Roadshow, made comments regarding Nine's VOD ambitions during "="" in="" piracy"="" shortcode="link" asset-type="article" uuid="eaba86c8-5071-4b5e-b6cf-fd04a6677ba7" slug="village-roadshow-says-iinet-is-complicit-in-piracy" link-text="an interview to CNET's Claire Reilly" section="news" title="Village Roadshow says iiNet is " edition="us" data-key="link_bulk_key" api="{"id":"eaba86c8-5071-4b5e-b6cf-fd04a6677ba7","slug":"village-roadshow-says-iinet-is-complicit-in-piracy","contentType":null,"edition":"us","topic":{"slug":"internet"},"metaData":{"typeTitle":null,"hubTopicPathString":"Internet","reviewType":null},"section":"news"}"> . Noting that Netflix was planning to open in Australia next year, Burke added that is had "been reported that Channel 9 are opening an operation in the space in Australia and that Hoyts theatres are going to open an operation".

Both Nine and Quickflix have been contacted for further comment and we'll update as information comes to hand.

Update, 4.30pm AEST: A spokesperson for the Nine Entertainment Network said that the company had no formal comment but noted that the share acquisition was a "small, opportunistic financial investment" that offered an "attractive risk-reward profile".