Market Report: Marwyn’s sell off boosts Peppa Pig distributor Entertainment One

Peppa Pig rights holder Entertainment One is going back to its Canadian roots, as early investor Marywn sold the remaining slice of its shares.

Marywn is offloading the 52.9 million shares or 17.9% of Entertainment One, which soared 20.4p or 8% to 289.5p, to the Canada Pension Plan for £142.4 million at 269p a pop.

When Marywn brought the company to AIM in 2007 with a market value of just £85 million, it was a Canadian DVD, CD and video-game distributor.

Several acquisitions later, Marywn transformed Entertainment One into a FTSE 250 stalwart worth more than £1 billion and a global rights group behind such hit TV series as The Walking Dead.

Marwyn is a master of the reverse acquisition. It takes on a listed cash shell — a public company that has usually gone bust — and then makes an acquisition of an operating company in a sector it tips for big things, effectively running a private equity model on the public market.

It has made a 4.3 times its original investment in Entertainment One in less than nine years and plans to plough the returns into its other investments, including webuyanycar.com owner BCA Marketplace, up 0.88p at 177.63p.

The FTSE 100 crept 33.27 points higher to 6170.87 as the US Federal Reserve’s key two-day meeting began, with the big decision on whether to hike interest rates coming tomorrow.

Analysts speculated whether yesterday’s poor data from across the Atlantic was the nail in the coffin for a possible rate rise in September.

Sparkling sales from the luxury goods firm Richemont booted Burberry 50p higher to 1455p, to the top of the Footsie.

Shares in Stagecoach chugged 3p ahead to 348.2p after extending its control of the East Midlands rail franchise until 2018 for £150 million.

Meanwhile on AIM, model-railway maker Hornby dropped 1.5p to 104p as it warned of lower half-year revenues midway through its turnaround plan.

Alkane Energy charged 10.44p or 42% higher to 35.44p, as Balfour Beatty’s Barbican Bidco swooped for the UK-focused gas to power firm in a £61 million deal.