Tektronix has made official its intentions to exit the video content production business with the planned sale of that portion of its business to a new private investment entity, the Grass Valley Group.

The Grass Valley Group is headed by industrialist Dr. Terence Gooding, currently cochairman of communications test company Wavetek Wandel Goltermann, along with Tim Thorsteinson, president of the Tektronix Video and Networking Division.

Wilsonville, Oregon-based Tektronix had announced in June that it planned to leave the video business and focus on its operations in the test and measurement and color printing businesses. Tektronix will retain a 10% stake in Grass Valley Group.

Products like the Profile digital video server and the Grass Valley line of routers, switchers and modular products are included under the new deal. Also included in the Grass Valley Group transaction is the newly released Kalypso Video Production Centre family of products. Kalypso system is a self-contained product for controlling teleproduction environments, designed to be hdtv future friendly and combining switching and mix/effects capabilities with an open networked architecture.

Grass Valley Group will be headquartered in Nevada City, Calif., the site of the current Grass Valley operation. The engineering and marketing team supporting the Profile products will be located in Beaverton, Oregon. Product development will continue to be supported from an existing Tektronix location in Bangalore, India.

The year-old alliance between Tektronix and Avid Technology – which spawned the Avstar newsroom computing company – will continue, with 50% of Avstar held each by Grass Valley Group and Avid.

The company’s existing product lines are leading solutions in their respective areas. The company says with a 25% market share, Profile products are number one in the $400-million video server market, and that there is more than $1-billion worth of Grass Valley products installed worldwide, handling about 80% of global tv signals.

The new company forecasts sales of about us$250 million next year and will have 700 employees worldwide.

The planned acquisition is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to be finalized by the end of September.