Reese Witherspoon arrives to the Oscars pink carpet for the 93rd Academy Awards in Los Angeles, California, U.S., April 25, 2021. Chris Pizzello/Pool by way of REUTERS
Aug 2 (Reuters) – Academy award-winning actress Reese Witherspoon’s media firm, Howdy Sunshine, is promoting itself to a newly shaped media agency backed by Blackstone Group Inc for an undisclosed sum.
The sale will worth the corporate at about $900 million, individuals aware of the matter informed Reuters.
Based in 2016, Howdy Sunshine is the women-led manufacturing home behind collection like HBO’s “Massive Little Lies,” “The Morning Present” on Apple TV+ and “Little Fires All over the place.”
The deal comes as a video streaming conflict between Netflix Inc , Walt Disney Co’s Disney+ and AT&T Inc’s HBO Max heats up, forcing the businesses to spend billions of {dollars} on content material.
“The quickly rising demand for high-quality content material is one in every of our agency’s highest-conviction funding themes,” Joe Baratta, the worldwide head of personal fairness at Blackstone, mentioned in a press release.
Earlier this yr, Amazon.com Inc introduced the acquisition of MGM, the fabled U.S. film studio residence to the James Bond franchise.
Blackstone is executing the Howdy Sunshine deal by its non-public fairness arm, which had beforehand purchased a majority stake in relationship app Bumble Inc’s dad or mum Magic Labs.
The brand new media firm shopping for Witherspoon’s agency will probably be led by former Disney executives Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs.
Its board will embrace Witherspoon and Howdy Sunshine Chief Govt Sarah Harden, who will proceed to supervise the day-to-day operations of the manufacturing home.
Witherspoon and Harden will even stay important fairness holders of Howdy Sunshine.
Reporting by Niket Nishant and Sohini Podder in Bengaluru; Writing by Noor Zainab Hussain; Modifying by Aditya Soni
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