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Candle Media, the private-equity-backed firm that has invested in companies based by Hollywood stars akin to Reese Witherspoon, has settled on its newest goal: Exile Content material Studio, a producer of Spanish-language movies, TV reveals and podcasts.
Candle Media, which is run by Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs, former senior executives on the Walt Disney Firm, mentioned on Monday that it was buying Exile in a cash-and-stock deal. Exile’s administration workforce, which incorporates its founder and chief government, Isaac Lee, will be part of Candle Media.
Executives from Candle Media and Exile declined to reveal the worth of the deal. The mixed worth of Candle Media’s offers, that are bankrolled by the personal fairness agency Blackstone, to date whole round $4 billion, in keeping with an individual with data of the enterprise who spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of he was not licensed to debate the deal.
In an interview, Mr. Staggs mentioned he and Mr. Mayer had zeroed in on Exile as a result of the corporate would assist Candle Media attain the rising viewers of Spanish audio system, which he mentioned numbered greater than 550 million globally. He mentioned the corporate’s breadth of content material — throughout streaming, conventional tv, podcasts and music — was additionally a promoting level.
“We predict it could possibly open up new alternatives for us with creators that we would not in any other case attain,” Mr. Staggs mentioned.
Based in 2019, Exile produces TV reveals and movies with streaming providers and TV networks. Its productions embrace a scripted collection for Netflix with Diego Luna, a “Rogue One” star, as a showrunner; the kids’s present “Membership Mundo Children” for Amazon Prime; and a docuseries on the Spanish soccer workforce Actual Madrid for HBO.
In an interview, Mr. Lee mentioned he had already begun working with Moonbug Leisure, the Candle Media firm that owns the favored youngsters’s TV present “CoComelon,” to vet concepts for reveals he deliberate to introduce. Exile can also be working with Whats up Sunshine, the media firm based by Ms. Witherspoon and bought by Candle Media, on an as-yet-unannounced venture.
“Integrations on the whole are very cumbersome and tough,” Mr. Lee mentioned. “On this case, they’re natural, pure, and so they work extremely nicely.”
Candle Media and Exile started speaking a couple of deal final fall. In November, they reached an settlement on the broad strokes of a buyout, but it surely didn’t come to fruition for a number of months as a result of Candle Media was busy scouting and executing different offers.
Candle Media is essentially the most outstanding participant within the private-equity increase that has swept Hollywood in current months as traders search to money in on the rising demand for streaming content material. Mr. Mayer and Mr. Staggs are betting that mental property — the idea for main film franchises, TV reveals and books — will grow to be solely extra worthwhile as audiences shift to streaming video and help creators by buying merchandise and digital items together with NFTs, or nonfungible tokens.
Candle Media might promote or go public in a matter of years. Non-public fairness companies normally search to recoup their investments over a interval of a number of years, both via a public providing or by promoting to a different firm in the identical sector.
Along with its buying Moonbug and Whats up Sunshine, Candle Media has bought a stake in Westbrook, an organization based by Will and Jada Pinkett Smith. It has additionally acquired ATTN:, a media firm that produces short-form leisure and information content material.
The deal is a reunion of types for Mr. Mayer and Mr. Lee, who in 2013 — when Mr. Mayer was at Disney and Mr. Lee was an government at Univision — collectively launched a cable channel known as Fusion aimed toward English-speaking Latinos. The channel was a part of an bold however ill-fated technique orchestrated by Mr. Lee to provide Univision a foothold amongst youthful audiences.
“The one vivid mild there was attending to know him and dealing with him and understanding his philosophy,” Mr. Mayer mentioned.
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Supply- nytimes