French studio Mediawan and Germany’s Leonine have signed a deal to merge their operation, forming certainly one of Europe’s largest movie and TV corporations.
The all-stock transaction, introduced Sunday, will create a mini-major with corporations and operations throughout 13 international locations and annual revenues of greater than €1 billion ($1.06 billion). Mediawan took a 25 p.c stake in Leonine again in 2020. Each corporations are backed by personal fairness group KKR. The settlement is conditional on regulatory approval.
Mediawan boss Pierre-Antoine Capton can be CEO of the brand new, merged group, with Leonine head Fred Kogel main operations in German-speaking territories. Kogel will even be part of Mediawan’s government committee.
Each Mediawan, launched in 2015 by Capton, Xavier Niel and Matthieu Pigasse, and Leonine, which Kogel based in 2019, have adopted comparable methods of tapping personal fairness funding to purchase up impartial manufacturing and distribution corporations in Europe. Among the many titles produced by Mediawan-owned labels embody Netflix hit Name My Agent, children collection Miraculous Ladybug, and Bob Marley: One Love. Leonine subsidiaries embody distribution outfits TMG and Universum Movie and Darkish producers W&B Tv. The group is the main impartial theatrical distributor in Germany-speaking Europe, with rights to such options as Knives Out, Starvation Video games – The Ballad Of Songbirds and Snakes, and the John Wick franchise.
“With the addition of Leonine Studios, we’ve got achieved an essential milestone in Mediawan’s technique to create a pan-European studio with a robust presence in all key markets,” mentioned Capton in a press release. “I’m delighted to welcome Fred Kogel and your complete Leonine crew who’ve constructed a number one impartial studio over time – collectively, we are going to turn out to be an much more enticing platform for inventive expertise and strengthen our place as a number one studio for premium content material throughout all genres.”
Kogel mentioned the merger was “the subsequent step” in creating “a pan-European powerhouse.”
Philipp Freise, co-head of European Non-public Fairness at KKR mentioned the corporate seemed ahead “to persevering with to work intently with Pierre-Antoine Capton and Fred Kogel as Mediawan enters the subsequent section in its spectacular progress trajectory.”