French Studio Mediawan Buys Germany’s Leonine to Form Euro Mini-Major

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 nations 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 will likely be CEO of the brand new, merged group, with Leonine head Fred Kogel main operations in German-speaking territories. Kogel may also be a 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 unbiased manufacturing and distribution corporations in Europe. Among the many titles produced by Mediawan-owned labels embrace Netflix hit Name My Agent, youngsters sequence Miraculous Ladybug, and Bob Marley: One Love. Leonine subsidiaries embrace distribution outfits TMG and Universum Movie and Darkish producers W&B Tv. The group is the main unbiased 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 have now 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 an announcement. “I’m delighted to welcome Fred Kogel and your entire Leonine group who’ve constructed a number one unbiased studio through the years – collectively, we’ll grow to be an much more engaging 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 following step” in creating “a pan-European powerhouse.”

Philipp Freise, co-head of European Non-public Fairness at KKR mentioned the corporate regarded ahead “to persevering with to work carefully with Pierre-Antoine Capton and Fred Kogel as Mediawan enters the following section in its spectacular development trajectory.”