For Broadcast April 15, 2009

Coolabi executives are eyeing up a business they already know well.

At first glance, last week's unsolicited bid by tiny Coolabi for the works of the best-known detective novelist Agatha Christie looked like a bit of a mystery in itself.

Coolabi's bid of £40m for the crime unit of Chorion, which has Christie's 80 novels and 16 plays as its heart, would transform the AIM-listed company, which has a market capitalisation of only around £3m. It may look a case of a minnow swallowing a whale, but the money for the bid is accessible.

Coolabi had £316,000 in cash and at the end of last year, an £800,000 bank facility it hadn't used. But most importantly it has some big-league backers, including BlackRock Investment, Schroder, Goldman Sachs and Charles Stanley, and an appetite for growth. In the past two years, Coolabi has brought five companies, and owns the rights to Purple Ronnie, Bagpuss, The Clangers and Ivor the Engine.

More importantly, Coolabi has form. Its chief executive Jeremy Banks and non-executive director Nick James are both ex-Chorion executives and already have a relationship with the Agatha Christie estate, which owns a controlling 64% stake in the author's back catalogue.

Coolabi also has the appetite to develop the crime assets. Since private equity company 3i bought Chorion for £111m in 2006, the crime unit has been short on investment. Instead, Chorion, led by chairman Lord Waheed Ali, has put it efforts into children's characters including Noddy and Mr Men.

With new audiences coming to kids properties for the first time every few years, the kids IP business can be a real goldmine and it could make the eventual sale of Chorion an 'easier story' for 3i to tell the City.

So why does Coolabi think it can put Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot together with Bagpuss and Purple Ronnie? The key is good management and developing brands across multiple platforms, in multiple territories. From better dust jackets on books to creating digital games and websites, there are lots of opportunities. This was Chorion's original business model and one that served it well. Coolabi's backers BlackRock and Schroder also backed the original Chorion MBO in 2006 and it seems Jeremy Banks and Nick James see an opportunity to do something similar again.

Perhaps, like any good story, it can be just as satisfying the second time round.