Lions Gate Stake Sale Gives More Control to John Malone
November 10 2015 - 12:10PM
Dow Jones News
Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., the movie company behind the
Hunger Games franchise, said Tuesday that it agreed to sell
separate 3.4% stakes to Liberty Global PLC and Discovery
Communications Inc., both of which are connected to cable mogul
John Malone.
Mr. Malone, who is Liberty Global's chairman and has a 29%
voting stake in Discovery Communications, already was a board
member at Lions Gate, where he owns 3% of the shares outstanding.
He has talked about consolidating studios and smaller channels to
better compete as the traditional TV bundle begins to unravel.
The sold stakes, which represent a total of 10 million shares,
will be purchased for $195 million each. The shares were slated to
be acquired from funds affiliated with MHR Fund Management LLC.
Additionally, Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries, Discovery CEO David
Zaslav and MHR's investment committee member Emily Fine will be
given seats on the Lions Gate board.
Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. swung to a loss for the quarter
ending in September, partly because of disappointing box-office
figures, but the company said it is positioned for a "very strong"
fiscal second half.
The television and film company posted a $7.2 million write-down
for the Vin Diesel movie "The Last Witch Hunter," which was
released after the end of the quarter. It also said "American
Ultra" underperformed. The studio only had two wide releases during
the quarter, American Ultra and "Shaun the Sheep."
Meanwhile, the shift of the wide release of "Sicario" to October
from September meant marketing costs were recorded in the quarter
without significant revenue benefit.
Liberty Global is a sprawling international basket of cable
operators that has scooped up assets across the world as it looks
to position itself as a media and content-distribution giant. It
has been on a buying spree in content over the past year, agreeing
to acquire Irish broadcaster TV3 and taking stakes in production
house All3Media and British broadcaster ITV.
Discovery, whose assets include its namesake station in addition
to Animal Planet and TLC, has been expanding overseas aggressively
in recent years. Last year, the company took a controlling stake in
the pan-European sports-network group Eurosport, and it operates
foreign-language channels including Giallo and Familia.
Write to Ezequiel Minaya at ezequiel.minaya@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 10, 2015 11:55 ET (16:55 GMT)
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