Vancouver: Producer Colleen Nystedt is the latest founding partner to leave Vancouver’s Sextant Entertainment in an operational restructuring that began Jan. 31 when 24% of staff were laid off.

Nystedt, who left the company last month, follows cofounders Chris Brough and Michelle Gahagan who departed Sextant Feb. 22 ‘to pursue production projects independently.’

Of the original group, president Matthew O’Connor, producer Tom Rowe and distributor Thomas Howe remain. O’Connor and Rowe are former partners of Tony Allard, who, through West Vancouver-based Hearthstone Investments, owns 37% of Sextant’s voting shares outright and controls another 16% through power of attorney.

The operating divisions are THA Media, Pacific Motion Pictures and Sextant VFX.

The changes mean Sextant will focus on television production. The company is in Calgary beginning work on another Hallmark Entertainment coproduction, Dreamkeeper, a four-hour miniseries for ABC.

‘While Sextant is still a full-service production company with major feature film experience, we are focusing primarily on television production,’ says O’Connor.

Meanwhile, Ian Fodie, who was the CFO when the restructuring began, also left Sextant last month and was replaced by new CFO Shamsh Kassam, who was previously with CanWest Global and WIC Western International Communications.

At press time, Sextant had not traded on the Canadian Venture Exchange since April 4, when it was valued at $0.26 per share compared to the year high of $0.70 per share and a year low of just under $0.06 per share.

-www.sextantentertainment.com