MGM Holdings Inc., the movie studio behind the “James Bond” franchise, is looking for sales, according to those familiar with the matter, betting that its content library will attract companies growing in streaming video.
Nearly held MGMA investment banks have tapped Morgan Stanley MS 5.69%
And LionTree LLC and sale began the formal sales process, people said. Some said the company has a market capitalization of about .. 5.5 billion, based on private trade, including shares and debt.
The studio had considered selling at various points over the past few years, but potential suitors had previously outgrown MGM at the asking price. MGM hopes the current process will generate interest from traditional Hollywood players as well as international media companies, private equity investors and Cora Czech companies, sources close to the matter said.
MGM’s largest shareholder, the New York hedge fund Anchorage Capital Group, has come under pressure in recent years due to poor performance and faulty pressure on clients, and its unreasonable investment in MGM has shrunk to a large percentage of its hedge fund.
MGM’s exploration of potential sales has come amid a bidding battle for content to fill a new wave of streaming-video services. MGM’s title library could make it an attractive target, its investors say.
The dystopian TV show ‘The Handmaids Tale’, distributed by MGM’s TV unit, features Elizabeth Moss on the video streaming service Hulu.
Photo:
George Krayak / Hulu / Zuma Press
Film Studios has produced or distributed movies and TV shows, including the “Rocky” franchise, “The Handmade Tale” and “Vikings”. He has made movie licensing deals from his library, including “Silence of Silence,” “Dance of the Wolves,” “Rain Man,” and “The Terminator.”
MGM’s largest asset is the “James Bond” franchise, which it shares with the Winzan / Broccoli family-owned holding company, Danzac LLC, which co-owns the piracy of existing “Bond” movies and controls the franchise’s future.
MGM also owns Apex, a premium TV channel and video-streaming service, and has acquired a stake in the production ventures of “Survivor” producer Mark Burnett.
In 2018, MGMA fired its then-chief executive, Hollywood veteran Gary Barber, for having an initial, inadvertent conversation with Apple Pal. Inc.
To sell the studio for more than 6 6 billion. Initial negotiations were called off when he was fired. Kevin Ulrich, chairman of MGM Board, co-founder of Anchorage, told studio investors at the time that MGM could sell more than billion 1 billion in two to three years, as previously reported by the Wall Street Journal.
But since then the share price of the privately traded company has fallen sharply. It trades for about $ 80, up from કરતા 17 it ordered in 2010 to come out of bankruptcy, but trades around $ 120 in 2018 in hopes of a $ pal deal.
Mr Allerish has told customers he has been working towards deals for the studio in recent months and he has called on big tech companies as logical buyers, investors said.
Anchorage and many other hedge funds bought MGM’s debt before going bankrupt in 2010 and have since become shareholders in the restructuring studio. They and other hedge funds that later became involved, made a bet that the distributor would land-grab for the material.
His plan was to add value to MGM’s library with new hits and then exit through the initial public offering fur or studio sales. Expect to be at MGM a few decades later.
Mr Ulrich and other investors were hoping for a deal around the release of “No Time to Die”, while the release of the film would increase the value of the library and announce something that could generate buyer interest. The premiere of “Time to Die” was postponed by MGM from November to April 2021 so that it could be seen in theaters.
While movie theaters have remained in the dark for most of the year as a result of capacity restrictions, the epidemic has in some ways proved to be a boon for MGM. Its manufacturing business suffered losses earlier in the year, but its library has benefited from strong demand due to a widespread shortage of new materials, MGMA said earlier this year.
In its third-quarter earnings report, chief rating officer Christ Fischer Christopher Brearten said production has withdrawn and MGM is on track to take 212021, possibly the biggest year for new content.
In the first three quarters of 2020, MGMA posted 18 181 million in adjusted EBITDA, up from 12 3,123 million in the same period last year. It is thanks to the studio’s strong television-licensing revenue and low marketing costs, although MGM notes that it was partially offset by the film release delayed by the epidemic.
Potential suitors showed interest in MGM this spring because people stayed at home and demanded streaming, said a person familiar with the process. The company has only recently taken an interest in waiting for the long winter and the indefinite deadline to resume, the person said.
-J Fl Wheelbarrow
Contributed to this article.
Write to Benjamin Mullin at [email protected], Kara on Lombardo. [email protected] and Juliet Chung at [email protected]
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