HONG KONG – London-listed Indian animation firm DQ Entertainment is to buy a 20% stake in French company Method Films SA.

Headed by Aton Soumache, Method is an animation concept and content creation company which has produced content for nets including Nickelodeon, BBC, ITV, France 2, France 3 and ABC Australia. With DQ it has co-produced shows including "Skyland," "Les Gnouf" and "Mikido." It is now in the process of working with Marvel Entertainment and DQ on the Jon Favreau-helmed Iron Man."

Purchase is part of a "strategy to invest in co-production to obtain larger percentages of the global intellectual property and distribution rights," DQ's chairman & CEO, Tapaas Chakravarti said. Details of the transaction were not disclosed, but it reported that Method had a net asset value of Euros 13.3 million ($20 million) at the end of 2006 and EBITDA of $9.87 million.

"DQ Entertainment is a talented large production company to which we owe a lot. It will be a central key to the future developments of our company, not only for animation productions for various platforms, but for video games also," Method chairman Soumache said.