Mediawan joins forces with Brad Pitt in the cinema

He is a partner that many would have dreamed of having. the French group Mediawan, one of the main independent producers of audiovisual content in Europe, has just teamed up with Brad Pitt, by taking, according to our sources, 60% of the capital of his production company Plan B, which the actor co-chairs with Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner. The partnership agreement would include three- and five-year options for full buyout.

In this operation, half in cash and half in shares of the French company, the three American partners become shareholders of Mediawan, in which they would now own a share of around 6% between them.

Transaction worth approximately $300 million

In this auction process, other American investors had also positioned themselves. Mediawan won, with a transaction worth around $300 million, according to our sources. For the occasion, Mediawan would also have been the subject of a valuation, estimated between 1.3 and 1.5 billion euros.

To finance the operation, the audiovisual group created by Pierre-Antoine Capton, Xavier Niel and Matthew Pigasse has had recourse to a capital increase, in which its three founders participate, as well as its other shareholders, the American fund KKR (entered the capital in 2020), Bpifrance, MACSF and Société Générale. The capital increase leaves the shareholding balances unchanged. “The control of the company remains French”, insists its co-founder Pierre-Antoine Capton.

Founded in 2015, Mediawan, which has 1,500 employees for around 1 billion euros in turnover, has several major successes to its credit, such as the films “BAC Nord” and “November” or the series “HPI” and ” Ten percent “. Plan B is no exception. Since its creation in 2001, the company has notably won three Oscars for best film for “The Infiltrators”, “Twelve years a slave” and “Moonlight”.

Complementarity

This partnership with Plan B allows the French group to continue to expand on the American market, after having launched the production company Blue Morning Pictures in September with author Florian Zeller and producer Federica Sainte-Rose. A new entity, Mediawan US, will be responsible for coordinating the group’s projects in the United States.

“We are in a globalized production industry, we must be able to allow our talents to express themselves throughout the world”, explains Pierre-Antoine Capton. “For that, we needed to be able to develop in the United States. In my eyes, the perfect partner was Plan B, the best American independent production company, and the most creative”, he adds.

Discussions between the three French partners and their American counterparts began in 2016, during a meeting in Los Angeles. “We had already discussed at the time what we could do together, but it was too early for them as for us”, recalls the other co-founder Matthieu Pigasse. The profiles of the two groups blend well. “First of all, there is an obvious geographical complementarity: we are the European leader in independent production, they are very strong in the United States, notes the investment banker. There is also a complementarity of values, with a very similar entrepreneurial philosophy, and editorial complementarity. Through this association, Mediawan intends to become a “global, American and European platform, and one of the leaders in independent production in the world”, he summarizes.

“Cinema is becoming international. Talents are emerging all over the world. For our future projects, we must look outside the United States. For this, we were looking for a foreign partner to think about our future content, ”said Brad Pitt for his part. to the “Parisian”. The actor, who owns a property and a vineyard in the Var, has long been attached to France. He now has an additional reason to go there.