 "Pinewood Studios. Photo: Facebook page")
Britain's Pinewood Studios, where Harry Potter and James Bond movies were filmed, is set to be sold to a property company for £323 million ($423 million) under a draft deal revealed on Thursday.
Pinewood "announces that it has reached agreement... on key terms of a possible cash offer for Pinewood by Venus Grafton," a subsidiary of PW Real Estate Fund, Pinewood Group said in a statement.
Synonymous for many Britons with the heyday of British cinema, Pinewood's first four studios were built in the 1930s at its site west of London and the company has since grown with facilities in the United States, Canada, Malaysia and the Dominican Republic
The 007 stage at Pinewood, one of the largest in Europe, was first built for the 1976 Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me and has been used by numerous films since including The Da Vinci Code and Lara Croft Tomb Raider.
Pinewood Group, which said in February it was seeking a takeover to boost shareholder value and help it grow, said on Thursday it would recommend shareholders accept the offer from PW Real Estate Fund.
As a result of a failed takeover attempt in 2011, Pinewood's biggest shareholder Peel Group owns 39 per cent and Warren James Holdings has 26 per cent, Reuters data showed. Pinewood said both had accepted the offer.
As well as its 20 stages at Pinewood, the group also boasts underwater filming facilities, television and film post-production and editing and recording services for the computer games industry.
To many older Britons, Pinewood achieved fame in the 1950s and 1960s for being home to the long-running Carry On comedy films and Norman Wisdom comedies.
More recently, parts of the latest Star Wars: The Force Awakens were filmed there.
Hollywood star Harrison Ford could have been killed when a door from the Millenium Falcon spaceship set fell on him during filming in 2014, a court heard earlier this week in a health and safety case. The actor suffered a broken leg in the incident.
Pinewood had appointed Rothschild investment bank in February to prepare a possible sale of the company.
The shareholder register is "tightly held, which has continued to stifle liquidity in the shares and has prevented the company from achieving its aim of obtaining a main market listing", the Pinewood Group said.
Pinewood shareholders will receive 560 pence in cash for each share plus a final dividend of 3.2 per share. Its shares were down five per cent at 552p by 0928 GMT.
