Dick Cook Studios Raised $500-M From Chinese Financier
$DIS, $CMCSA, $FOX
A Hangzhou, China-based company is bankrolling the former Disney Pictures Chairman’s new film and TV venture.
Dick Cook Studios, a new production company founded by former Walt Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook, raised $500- from China’s Film Carnival this week.
Under the terms of the deal announced Tuesday, Film Carnival will finance 100% of Cook’s movie projects, with an option to give “other Chinese investors an]= opportunity to invest in Dick Cook Studios motion pictures on an individual basis,” the companies said in a statement.
The 1st film to be produced under the fund is an adaptation of Australian author John Flanagan’s best-selling book series Ranger’s Apprentice, which will be directed by Oscar-winner Paul Haggis from a screenplay written by Haggis and daughter, Alissa Sullivan Haggis.
The agreement deepens Mr. Cook’s ties with Chinese money.
He launched Dick Cook Studios in Y 2015 with a $150-M investment from CITIC Guoan Group Co. Ltd., a division of the state-owned Chinese conglomerate CITIC Group.
The landmark deal is the latest in a barrage of Chinese cash injections into Hollywood film slates and production companies.
It follows Chinese real estate and investment conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group’s $3.5-B acquisition of Thomas Tull’s Legendary Entertainment, Beijing-based Perfect World Pictures’s $250-M investment into Universal’s slate and Bona Film Group’s $235-M investment into 6 tentpoles from 20th Century Fox, among others.
Mr. Cook is a Hollywood veteran spending 40 years at Disney (NYSE:DIS), rising up through the ranks to serve as Chairman from Y’s 2002 to 2009, overseeing the release of films such as Pirates of the Caribbean, National Treasure and Finding Nemo.
Film Carnival is far less known to Hollywood, even in China, many high-level industry players say they are unfamiliar with the company.
What is known, as follows:
- Based in Hangzhou in China’s eastern Zhejiang province, Film Carnival is headed by two brothers: Lou Xiaolou is the company’s Chairman, while his younger brother, Lou Xiaodong, serves as President. Both are coming to the film business from financial backgrounds. The elder Lou began his career as a trader in the Shanghai Futures Exchange in the 1990’s, and later served as a director at Hong Kong Lianfa Securities. He is said to be enamored with the film business.
- Film Carnival partnered with DCS and CITIC Guoan on the inaugural China-US Motion Picture Summit held near Beijing last Friday. The 1-day event featured panel discussions designed to encourage deeper ties between the world’s 2 largest film industries.
- The company is also occasionally referred to as JSNH, which are the initials for its corporate name in Chinese which reads Jia Shi Nian Hua, literally meaning “the Golden Times of Fine Viewing/Entertainment.”
- Film Carnival has yet to release a film of its own. According to official documents, the company was established in Y 2006 with registered capital of RMB 200-M ($31-M). In Y 2015 it signed agreements to finance and produce a film each from veteran Hong Kong commercial directors Jeffrey Lau and Tony Ching, as well as the big-budget Chinese-language debut of South Korean art house star Kim Ki Duk.
- The money comes from managed private equity funds. For each of the films it has announced, Film Carnival has set up private equity funds managed by securities company Huafeng Investment Consultancy
- The company is also investing in boutique entertainment complexes.
Do not be surprised to see Thomas Skaggs surface with a China deal too…or tie-up with Mr. Cook.
Stay tuned…
Paul Ebeling
HeffX-LTN
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