MultiDyne, a provider of signal conversion and fiber-optic-based transport systems, has announced an acquisition of the assets of the former Mark Roberts Motion Control (“MRMC”) business, the well-known provider of robotic camera systems, motion control solutions, and automated camera tracking technologies.
The press release notes the acquisition includes the core technologies, intellectual property, manufacturing capabilities, and key engineering expertise. There are no immediate details available on the transaction, though we would expect future regulatory filings to provide some specifics on the financial terms.
This brings a healthy measure of stability to an utterly unstable situation for the MRMC business, its employees, its partners, and its customers.
We had opportunity to speak with Frank Jachette, CEO and owner of MultiDyne, ahead of the closing transaction. No commentary was offered on the terms of the transaction value, but Jachette confirmed the entire purchase is being funded with existing resources at MultiDyne and no external equity or debt financing is involved with the transaction.
After the recent journey of MRMC (discussed below), this is a point deserving emphasis.
The acquisition rationale is straightforward. “…MultiDyne has long been focused on the transport, processing and management of video, audio and data signals. MRMC places us at the point of the image acquisition itself” stated Jachette in the announcement release. Further, the businesses serve substantially the same customer set, both go-to-market through similar sales channels, and have a complementary geographic profile.
MultiDyne is headquartered outside New York; MRMC is headquartered outside of London. Coincidentally both organizations have maintained development groups in Poland a short drive from each other. MultiDyne plans to maintain the MRMC’s operations in the UK and is appointing industry veteran Neil Maycock (Pebble, Grass Valley, Pro-Bel) as managing director of MRMC.
Through a happy coincidence there is even a naming synergy as MultiDyne Robotics and Motion Control maintains the acronym and branding of MRMC.
MRMC was an approximately $15 million (USD) revenue business in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025, according to its most recent regulatory filings. Assuming the business can return to some meaningful approximation of its recent financial profile, this is a material addition to the MultiDyne operational profile.
There is work to do. MRMC was placed into liquidation over a month ago. An overlay on the website, during the week of June 8th, indicated sales terms had been agreed with a buyer and the completion was anticipated during the middle of next week (referring to the week of the 15th). The liquidation process reduced the employee count to skeleton level to maintain minimal operations.
The MultiDyne team is working to rehire certain employees, re-affirm channel relationships, and communicate with customers. Jachette indicated a combined presence is planned for the upcoming IBC Show.
How MRMC Got Here – Nikon Acquisition & Ownership
On January 26, 2026, MRMC celebrated its 60th year in business. In September of this year, MRMC was set to celebrate its 10th year of ownership by Nikon. (As an aside, Nikon is a business with a 100+year operation history, and MultiDyne is celebrating its 50th anniversary of operations).
Nikon announced its acquisition of Mark Roberts Motion Control (“MRMC”) on September 19, 2016. In addition to the biographical information on MRMC and an expression of optimism on the market, the brief release contained two whole sentences describing Nikon’s rationale (included below).
“… Nikon and MRMC aim to develop this new market further by utilizing MRMC’s robotic motion control solution together with Nikon’s imaging related technologies and its broad sales channels.
Nikon believes this acquisition will lead its further expansion into new fields of imaging product solutions.”
MRMC was the sole acquisition completed by Nikon during its 2017 fiscal year. Nikon’s cash flow statement for 2017 lists a 1,100-million-yen figure expended for the ‘payments for acquisition of shares of subsidiaries.’ The acquisition price of MRMC is likely this $10.1 million (USD) figure or included in this figure.
An even more economical release describes Nikon’s divestment of MRMC on March 26, 2026. It names the buyer (Blandford Capital), restates the original acquisition thesis, and indicates Nikon has subsequently reconsidered its business portfolio. Finishing with “As a result, Nikon has concluded that transferring all of it shares in MRMC to MRMC Bidco Limited is the most appropriate course of action, and has entered into this agreement.”
The transitional phrase ‘As a result’ is often preceded with an explanation of subject’s thought process – unfortunately not in this instance. We can, therefore, only include the public data points and offer some commentary.
According to regulatory filings, the year prior to the acquisition by Nikon (2015), MRMC was a profitable business with an employee count of 36. Post-acquisition, MRMC reported into a $3.5 billion revenue division, within a nearly $7 billion revenue, 25,000+ employee corporation based in the Shinagawa ward of Tokyo, Japan (a short twelve-hour flight away).
MRMC was again profitable during the calendar year 2016 (acquisition occurred during third quarter). In 2017 MRMC recorded strong growth, (specific sales figures aren’t available until 2017) and notably began operating at a loss.
The table below shows (where available) revenue, operating margin, and employee count.
Revenue trended up, employee counts trended up much faster. Employee count nearly tripled during Nikon’s ownership tenure (versus 2015 level of 36).
This revenue profile aligns with several broader observations from the recently released Devoncroft Market Sizing Study. Depressed revenue levels were observed for several categories of production technology during the dislocation of global lockdowns and production halts during 2020 and early portions of 2021. There was then a release of pent-up demand with many categories registered heightened level of end-customer spend. This, unsurprisingly, dissipated. In the case of MRMC there was the overlayed impact of Hollywood writer and actor strikes during the second and third quarters of 2023 (second half of fiscal 2024).
There is an applicable American proverb, “If you don’t make money and you aren’t growing, then why aren’t you making money?” In more simple terms, whatever you are chasing with incremental employees and expenses isn’t being obtained, so stop chasing it.
Annual losses at MRMC were funded by its parent company through a debt convention, where the balance grew (with interest) and with incremental losses. On the last available balance sheet (March 2025) the amount owed was £26.7 million.
During its fiscal 2025, Nikon recognized an impairment of a bit more than $5 million (USD) for the carrying amount of MRMC’s goodwill and intangible assets. The explanation was “Mark Roberts Motion Control Limited was found not to earn some of its initially anticipated revenue due to deteriorated market conditions, and therefore …”
The catalyst for rethinking past decisions is rarely the same executives reconsidering matters. Instead, it is usually new executives who are unattached to past reasoning. MRMC represented 0.3% (a third of a percentage) of Nikon’s fiscal 2025 revenue. Whatever the original plan of the acquisition, nearly 10 years and £26 million of operating losses hadn’t achieved it.
On February 12, 2026, Nikon announced the promotion of Yasuhiro Ohmura to President and CEO. Three months later on May 8th, Ohmura presented Nikon’s Medium Term Management Plan FY2026 – 2030. Slide 15 from the presentation is excerpted below (divestiture noted in top left portion).
How MRMC Got Here – Nikon Divestiture, Liquidation
As noted above, Nikon’s divestiture was announced on May 26th. The sale was confirmed (based on regulatory filings) in the UK on March 27, 2026. The decision to liquidate MRMC was decided at a meeting on May 22, 2026. That marks 57 days of operation by the new owners.
To put 57 days in perspective, that is the same amount of time between the first game and last game played by the 2026 NBA Champion New York Knicks during the recent playoffs.
The owner of MRMC for those 57 days was Blandford Capital, based in London. The website description reads, “Blandford Capital is a sector-agnostic, transformative investor supporting companies to navigate special situations through equity and debt solutions.” ‘Special’ is a euphuism for troubled in investment terminology. Often a stand-in for unprofitable, declining, or navigating a challenging corporate structure.
There was no press release issued by MRMC or Blandford (or at least not that currently exists) about the acquisition. There was a non-descript acknowledgement provided to TVBEurope.
You will see all reasons the industry community derides private equity in the information void.
The disclosures in Nikon’s filings provide some information about the financial consideration. The cash flow statement for the first nine months of fiscal year 2026 and the full year have the same value for the line item ‘Proceeds from sale of businesses.’ This indicates the sale of MRMC (completed during the fourth quarter) was an amount too small to impact the significant digits of Nikon’s reporting. This may not mean Nikon received no cash in the transaction, but it does mean it didn’t receive any material cash for the equity of MRMC.
In aggregate, the divestiture resulted in Nikon recognizing a loss in the amount of ¥3.2 billion or a bit more than $20 million (USD) at prevailing rates.
The MRMC liquidation analysis (dated May 22nd) indicates Blandford as a creditor in an amount of £31.0 million. This could suggest the deal was structured to purchase both the equity and the debt. Monies received for the latter would be subsumed in other far larger accounts in Nikon’s reporting.
As detailed in the liquidation analysis (again as of May 22nd), non-Blandford claims on the MRMC assets were only a bit more than £2.0 million. This compares to a book value of assets of £17.6 million (including £4.4 million of cash). The initial estimate of what those assets could recover (in terms of funds) was £7.5 million. Part of the recovery is whatever MultiDyne paid for the assets acquired from MRMC.
Even if Blandford’s claim is the last in line of the creditors, it should receive all such funds after those other creditors (given the size of its claim). We repeat there is no information to confirm rationale or motivation. There are only the data points as described above.
If we had complete information, then we could calculate Blandford’s return as follows:
- Numerator: Cash received from liquidation (existing cash, cash received from asset sale, cash received from any other dispositions) less the sum of claims by other creditors, monies owed to employees, and costs of the liquidation process
- Denominator: Cash paid to former parent to acquire MRMC and associated cash transaction costs
We refrain from speculation. Rather, we cite a line from the iconic book Barbarians at the Gates, detailing the takeover battle for RJR Nabisco: “What did any of this have to do with doing business?”
© Devoncroft Partners 2009 – 2026. All Rights Reserved.
Discover more from Devoncroft Partners
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.