History
Endemol was founded in 1994 by a merger of television production companies owned by Joop van den Ende and John de Mol, the name deriving from the combination of their surnames. One notable success has been the Big Brother reality television show, with versions in many countries after the initial Dutch version. However the most profitable programme for Endemol is Deal or No Deal which has now been sold to over 100 countries. They specialise in inexpensive programming that is appealing to television executives in the modern multi-channel world, and other Endemol programmes in this vein include Changing Rooms, Ready Steady Cook, Ground Force, International King of Sports, Space Cadets, Fear Factor and Wipeout.
In 2000, the company was sold to the Spanish telecom and media corporation Telefónica for € 5.5 billion. In November 2005, 25% of Endemol was taken public, and is since then listed on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange under the stock symbol EML. On May 14, 2007 the remaining 75% of Endemol shares has been bought by a consortium, Edam Acquisition, led by Mediaset, the company controlled by Silvio Berlusconi's family, and including the investment company Cyrte, whose vast majority of shares is owned by the original co-founder John de Mol. The consortium announced on August 6, 2007, that it now owned 99.54% of Endemol shares, after an offer to buy the remaining shares went through on August 3, 2007; it asked the Euronext bourse for a delisting of Endemol.
In 2008, its United States counterpart acquired 51% of 51 Minds Entertainment from Cris Abrego and Mark Cronin, producers of several successful reality shows from VH1's "Celebreality" Block.
It was reported in 2010 that the company was $3 billion dollars in debt. As of 2011, the debt had grown to $4.1 billion.
A loan restructure was planned for 2011 when Endemol was expected to breach its debt covenants. On June 30 the debt covenants were breached at the same time that CEO Ynon Kreiz left the company and Endemol's UK subsidiary failed to file its annual accounts.
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