Simon Cowell’s Syco Entertainment has struck a deal worth $125M for the securitization of the Got Talent franchise.
The agreement, billed by advisor ACF as “the first of its kind” and “groundbreaking,” securitizes the intellectual property behind Got Talent, including the U.S., UK and international versions of the format, which is in 72 territories worldwide. In effect, production margins and fees, digital income, franchise and original content sales and sponsorship income have been pooled as securities.
This type of deal structure is more commonly commonly applied in the music industry, for royalty income streams. In general, it’s used to raise capital through equity, debt or a mixture of both.
As such, ACF says the deal, which took two years to complete, hands Syco a war chest to “grow the business through a mixture of strategic acquisitions and organic growth projects.”
ACF was the lead bank and advised Syco in both the UK and the US. Memery Crystal, a multidisciplinary international law firm based in London, advised Simon Cowell’s Syco Entertainment.
Thomas Dey, ACF’s Founder and CEO, said: “ACF worked with Syco to formulate this financial strategy to support its plans and managed the entire process as the lead bank. Our brief was to create a structure to enable the Company to maximise the full potential of its existing passive royalty income stream. ACF has created a winning formula using our extensive experience from across the media and entertainment sector. We are certain that this ground-breaking structure will be one that we will use for many media formats in the future.”
For Syco, the news comes after it made widespread redundancies earlier this year, with Cowell at the time reportedly keen to spend more time with his family. Whether today’s news impacts that plan is to be seen.
