Vancouver: Sextant Entertainment Group of Vancouver announced May 17 that the nbc-owned Paxnet-pax-tv has picked up The Rumfords, a computer-animated/ live-action series (think Roger Rabbit) about a tv family forced to move to a down-and-out neighborhood when their show gets canceled. pax-tv has picked up 13 episodes, which are in production in Vancouver. This, along with other Sextant productions – such as the four-hour tv miniseries Voyage of the Unicorn (produced with Hallmark Entertainment and based on the book Voyage of the Basset) should help push Sextant employee numbers, including production crews, to 500 people this summer.

The Rumfords is produced through Sextant subsidiary Pan Pacific Productions, while Voyage of the Unicorn is produced through Pacific Motion Pictures.

Other subsidiaries in the newly formed Sextant parent company include New City Productions, and post-production/visual effects house Reel Elements. Michelle Gahagan, Sextant senior vp, legal and business affairs, says financing of the company’s upcoming productions should largely be obtained through presales.

There is no word yet regarding the status of Sextant’s announcement earlier this spring that it was selling a us$19 million (Cdn$27.8 million) private placement for marketing, acquisitions and working capital purposes. Despite the recent dip in many Canadian entertainment stocks, Gahagan says she is ‘encouraged by the positive response [to the private placement offer]. I think this positive response has been due to the fact that we are in an earnings-based, growth industry.’

As for Sextant’s structure, Gahagan says the arrangement of having a number of companies under one umbrella is working well. ‘There is a great synergy as the people from these various companies have complimentary skill sets,’ she explains. ‘We have also filled in the gaps with additional hiring.’

She notes that the amalgamation of the companies under one roof has resulted in some general overhead cost-savings. ‘Our gross margin is eight per cent better than the industry average.’

Gahagan believes the true strength of Sextant’s structure lies in the synergies that now exist in the areas of marketing, development, distribution, legal, finance and accounting. ‘These resources can now help these companies go to the next level,’ she explains, adding that there are currently no plans to formally consolidate the company’s divisions into a single entity.

As for projects of the other Sextant companies, Gahagan says New City is currently seeking long-term strategic partnerships for productions in the u.k. and Germany. Pan Pacific Productions, the animation company run by former Mainframe Entertainment ceo Chris Brough, is currently working on Micronauts, a computer-animated series of 26 episodes based on the comic book series and recently picked up by ytv.

Sextant’s goal is to have six operating divisions: film production, television production, distribution, new media (including Internet distribution), post-production/visual effects, and computer-animated production.

Sextant went public on the Canadian Dealing Network over-the-counter market on March 1, with the first transaction at $2 per share. Since then, the stock has traded as high as $6 and is currently (as of May 30) trading at $4.75 per share.