After a postponement in early August, entertainment hodgepodge Endeavor Group (the parent of talent agency William Morris Endeavor) filed revised paperwork with the SEC as they more forward with an IPO. The company plans to offer approximately 19.35 million shares of stock for sale, at an estimated price of $30 to $32 per share. (As usual, the underwriters have an option for additional shares.) The company estimates they will received net proceeds of between $547 million and $632 million after expenses. As noted earlier, public investors will own a piece of a money-losing company that carries $4.57 billion in long-term […]
Agency News
Endeavor Files for IPO
Endeavor Group, the sprawling entertainment and representation conglomerate that is the parent of William Morris Endeavor, filed documents with the SEC for a public offering of shares. They intend to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol EDR, and the proposition is perhaps more reminiscent of a tech IPO than a regular offering. The company has grown quickly through a series of acquisitions, and is losing money at a good clip — with losses from continuing operations before taxes over the past three years of about $793 million. They carry debt of more than $4.6 billion and […]
Winter Is Here: What the Writers Guild Fight Means for Authors and Agents
More than a week ago the Writers Guild of America (WGA) ordered its members to fire their agents, and there’s no end in sight to writers’ objections to film and TV packaging fees and big agencies’ production affiliates. On April 16, the WGA escalated the situation by filing a civil lawsuit against the Association of Talent Agents (ATA) in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging that packaging fees violate federal and state law with respect to agents’ fiduciary duties to writer clients. (Talent agencies, unlike talent management firms and literary agencies, are licensed and regulated by the state.) It’s a Hollywood […]
Endeavor Looks to IPO, As Entertainment Writers’ Union Votes for New Code that Rejects Big Agencies’ Practices
People in businesses like ours still think of William Morris Endeavor as a talent agency, but ever since their acquisition of IMG for approximately $2.4 billion in 2014, the parent company has become a hedge-fund controlled entertainment group that also owns a talent agency. Subsequent deals included the purchase of a controlling interest in Ultimate Fighting Championship, as well as purchases of Professional Bull Riders, the Miss Universe pageant, branding and marketing agency 160over90, digital media distribution company NeuLion, and more. Now the parent company “has filed or is about to file confidential paperwork for an IPO,” the WSJ reports, […]
People, Etc.
Hachette Book Group has hired Wibke Grütjen as svp and chief marketing officer, starting March 25 and reporting to ceo Michael Pietsch. Grütjen will lead the marketing strategy team, and joins the management board. She has been vp of digital marketing at Macmillan since 2010. Alyson Forbes, who had been leading marketing strategy on an interim basis (following the departure of Heather Fain) has been promoted to vp, executive director of marketing strategy. After co-locating in mid-2017 with plans to “work very closely together” without actually merging, Lucas Alexander Whitley and TV and digital agency Factual Management have now taken […]
Final IRS Guidance On Business Tax Break Favors Publishing Professionals, Except for “Performing Arts” Licenses
On Friday the Treasury Department issued “final regulations and other guidance” to help clarify the application of last year’s tax cut for many owners of sole proprietorships, partnerships, trusts, and S corporations. One closely-watched provision for high-earning authors and other creators, as well as independent publishing professionals such as agents, scouts, publicists and others, is the section that exempts a “specified service trade or business” (SSTB) from taking the new business deduction if the person’s taxable income exceeds $157,500 (or $315,000 for a married couple filing jointly). Among the exempted fields are “the provision of services” in the “performing arts” […]