NEW DELHI: Iconic Hollywood studio MGM has appointed two investment banks to explore the prospect of a sale, The Wall Street Journal has reported. For the record, there have been talks in the market about MGM being sold for several years now, all of which have failed to materialise.
MGM, currently valued at $5.5 billion, has brought onboard Morgan Stanley and LionTree LLC as consultants on the process of a formal sale. The studio is owned by hedge funds Anchorage Capital, Highland Capital and Solus Alternative Asset Management, who acquired the company out of bankruptcy in 2010. The acquisition reportedly cost $10 billion but the onslaught of the novel Coronavirus has further devalued the legacy production company, which has a chequered history when it comes to its financial well-being. MGM also gave the pink slip to at least 50 employees and furloughed a third of its staff in April due to the economic fallout from Covid2019.
In fact, the next instalment of its blockbuster James Bond franchise, No Time to Die, has been delayed several times due to the pandemic, and is now slated for an April 2021 release. However, industry pundits forecast the movie will be pushed back further because people are not going to theatres, as evidenced by the lukewarm response to the international release of Warner Bros’ superhero flick Wonder Woman 1984.
As streaming gained rapid momentum, MGM held preliminary talks with Apple, Netflix and other global media companies about an acquisition earlier this year. It’s no secret that these OTT giants are continually looking to bolster their libraries to slake audiences’ thirst for more content, in their quest to dominate the streaming arena. And MGM, one of the oldest studios in Tinseltown, has a lot to offer.
MGM owns the entire James Bond catalogue. On the TV side, the company's library includes popular police procedural Live PD, Vikings, Fargo and The Handmaid's Tale, which streams on Hulu. It also owns premium cable network Epix. The studio’s film reel is even more impressive, with over 4,000 titles including hit film franchises like Rocky and The Hobbit, as well as The Silence of the Lambs, The Magnificent Seven, Mad Max, and Four Weddings and a Funeral.
