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PLAN B yacht NOT for charter*

73.15m  /  240' | adm shipyards | 2012.

Owner & Guests

Cabin Configuration

• Previous Yacht

Special Features:

• Elevator for easy access between floors
• Premium beauty and wellness amenities, including spa and beach club
• Three VIP cabins
• Germanischer Lloyd ✠ 100 A5 Motor Yacht, ✠ MC AUT classification
• Up to 25 crew

The 73.15m/240' motor yacht 'Plan B' was built by ADM Shipyards in the United Arab Emirates at their Kiel shipyard and she was delivered to her owner in June 2012. This luxury vessel's exterior design is the work of Focus Yacht Design.

Guest Accommodation

Plan B has been designed to comfortably accommodate up to 12 guests in 8 suites comprising three VIP cabins. She is also capable of carrying up to 25 crew onboard to ensure a relaxed luxury yacht experience.

Onboard Comfort & Entertainment

Her features include steam room, spa, elevator, beach club, gym, deck jacuzzi, WiFi and air conditioning.

Range & Performance

Plan B is built with a steel hull and aluminium superstructure, with teak decks. Powered by twin diesel MTU (16V 4000 M60) 16-cylinder 2,360hp engines running at 1800rpm, she comfortably cruises at 13 knots, reaches a maximum speed of 17 knots. An advanced stabilisation system on board promises exceptional comfort levels at anchor or on any voyage. She was built to Germanischer Lloyd ✠ 100 A5 Motor Yacht, ✠ MC AUT classification society rules.

PRIVATE YACHT - "Plan B" IS NOT FOR CHARTER

Sorry, motor yacht "Plan B" is a strictly Private yacht and is NOT available for Charter. Click here to view similar yachts for charter , or contact your Yacht Charter Broker for information about renting another luxury charter yacht.

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Plan B Photos

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NOTE TO U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROTECTION

Due to the international and fluid nature of the yachting business and the fact there is no global central industry listing service to which all charter yachts subscribe it is impossible to ascertain a truly up-to-date view of the market. We are a news and information service and not always informed when yachts leave the charter market, or when they are recently sold and renamed it is not clear if they are still for charter. Whilst we use our best endeavors to maintain accurate information, the existence of a listing on this website should in no way supersede official documentation supplied by representatives of a yacht.

Specification

M/Y Plan B

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International Edition

Plan B Boasts Oscars and Brad Pitt, But Can New Owner Mediawan Get Audiences Back for Prestige Movies?

By Elsa Keslassy

Elsa Keslassy

International Correspondent

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The U.S. theatrical market has never been more volatile for specialty films, even star-studded ones, but the appeal of Hollywood A-listers hasn’t faded — at least when it comes to finding investors.

Brad Pitt ‘s Plan B is the latest star-driven production company to be scooped up by deep-pocketed buyers, joining After Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s Westbrook Inc.

A majority stake of the company, which largely produces movies that often win laurels but seldom turn a profit, was acquired by Mediawan in a deal valued at approximately $300 million. Half of it was paid in cash and the other half in shares of Mediawan.

Enders says the deal “just shows that there is a huge prestige attached to a Hollywood star, and for a French company like Mediawan, this is the kind of blue chip marquee type acquisition which will make them feel that they can attract more talent in Hollywood,” Enders continues. That said, she says Mediawan is paying an “absurd price” to “buy something as nebulous and conceptual as the value of Pitt’s relationships and the attraction that he will hold to other bankable stars.”  Some would argue, however, that the price paid by Mediawan is coherent with Plan B’s financial health.

Backed by KKR and Atwater, the privately held company was launched seven years ago by Pierre Antoine Capton, telco billionaire Xavier Niel and financier Mathieu Pigasse, as a special-purpose acquisition vehicle listed on the Paris stock market. It rose in prominence through high-profile acquisitions of over 60 indie production labels with a track record of making both TV and films. These include Mon Voisin Productions (“Call My Agent!”), Chi-Fou-Mi (“November”), and Dimitri Rassam’s Chapter 2 (“The Three Musketeers”). 

With Plan B, Mediawan will be looking to leverage Pitt and his partners Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner’s relationships with agencies and high-pedigree talents to make more prestigious movies.

Still, Peter Newman, head of New York University’s MBA/MFA dual degree program, says “there’s never been such a profound disconnect between quality product and financial success.”

Indeed, Plan B boasts a string of successful awards fare, with three of their films, “The Departed,” “Moonlight” and “12 Years a Slave,” all winning the Oscar for best picture.

“But their libraries are virtually non-existent…and if you look at the likely films that will win huge accolades at the next Academy Awards, it would take a miracle for them to become highly profitable,” Newman continues.

Case in point: Plan B’s latest film “ She Said ” has earned warm reviews and is being talked about as an Oscar contender, but it bombed at the box office. The movie about the New York Times reporters who broke the Harvey Weinstein story has only earned $10.3 million worldwide.

When asked about the commercial performance of Plan B movies, Capton said he wasn’t so concerned because “the demand for quality content is extremely strong. And ‘She Said’ is exactly that.”

Capton also suggested that Plan B will probably be less reliant on the U.S. under Mediwan’s helm. For one thing, Plan B will be able to tap into Europe’s wide-ranging financial resources, from the backing of French studios to lucrative soft-money schemes. They’ll also be diving into TV series, which Capton said was one of the strategic aspects that triggered Plan B’s interest in Mediawan, which is extremely well-connected within the European TV landscape. The French group is behind “Call My Agent!,” among other series and documentary hits.

As Enders notes, “France has a unique position in Europe because producers have a protected IP position” which she says isn’t the case elsewhere, including even the U.K. where producers increasingly “operate at very low margins with fewer and fewer rights.” France is the first country in Europe to have reached an agreement with streamers such as Netflix and Amazon to regulate domestic content investment and rights ownership as part of the E.U.’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive. Local TV groups such as Canal+ also have French and European content investment obligations, which Plan B titles could fit into if the financing comes from the continent. 

Yet, unlike many film groups that have gone into TV, Plan B probably won’t have many options for spinoffs of its biggest movies since it doesn’t own the underlying intellectual property. Those remain with the studios that financed them. But even if they did, the movies they tend to make “don’t lend themselves to sequels or trilogies or remakes or anything of that sort,” points out Newman, adding that Plan B “doesn’t either have a huge reservoir of developed projects to make.”

But Plan B’s dearth of library titles and developed projects isn’t worrying Capton, either. He said the idea behind the deal was for Mediawan and Plan B to create value going forward.

“Once in a while we’ll look to finance content in order to keep 100% of their IP,” said Capton.

“Today, the content market is global… We have French talents like Omar Sy, Florian Zeller or Louis Letterier who are behind huge machines in the U.S,” said Capton. “What I’m focusing on now is a strategy for the years to come, for the future, in order to allow my group to grow and thrive.”

“Everybody’s talking about what we did because we set a foot in the U.S. with the biggest star in the world but the reality is that we’ve essentially brought together like-minded producers,” adds Capton.

Mediawan began its foray in the U.S. earlier this year with the launch of Blue Morning Pictures, along with Zeller, the French playwright-turned-filmmaker whose feature debut “The Father” won two Oscars, and former CAA agent Federica Sainte-Rose. And Capton suggested a project bringing together Zeller and Pitt could be in the cards. 

“The team at Plan B has a lot of respect for his work, and it’s mutual,” he hints.

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Brad Pitt’s Plan B Sells Majority Stake to French Company Mediawan

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Brad Pitt ‘s production company Plan B Entertainment is selling a 60 percent majority stake to the French media giant Mediawan in a deal that values the film company behind “Moonlight” and “12 Years a Slave” in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The news was formally announced late Friday after news of the deal broke early Friday. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but CNBC, which first reported the news, reported that Plan B is said to be worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars range but below $500 million.

Plan B first announced an intention to explore a sale of its assets or an investor back in October, and the sale is the latest example in a wave of M&A activity across Hollywood over the last few years. That’s included everything from the sale of Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine to Candle Media to LeBron James selling a minority stake in his SpringHill Company, as well as other rival labels and distributors testing the waters with sales to outside investors.

The investment in Plan B will be made via a newly created entity, Mediawan U.S., which will hold significant stakes in both Plan B and Florian Zeller’s Blue Morning Pictures. The Board of Mediawan U.S. will be chaired by Vania Schlogel, with Mediawan co-founder Pierre-Antoine Capton serving as CEO.

“This partnership will allow us to create a unique artistic link between Europe and the United States through which we and Plan B will develop premium independent content, providing a global platform on which the world’s greatest talent can continue to thrive. We would like to thank Brad, Dede, and Jeremy for their trust and recognition of the world-class content emanating from our work in Europe,” Capton said in a statement.

“We have loved working together for nearly two-decades and are incredibly excited about our future. As we enter the next chapter in our evolution, we are excited at the possibilities this partnership affords as we maximize our reach toward an increasingly global audience with a broad range of films and television series across all platforms, genres, and mediums,” Plan B partners Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner said in a statement. “For our current partner studios, along with those we look forward to working with in the future, we pledge to continue producing new content for audiences everywhere. With the innovative, artistic and producer-centric platform Mediawan has built, we open a window to an even greater number of storytellers, both established masters and the emerging voices that have always excited us.”

Plan B is behind acclaimed films such as this year’s “She Said,” “Blonde,” and “Father of the Bride” as well as other acclaimed titles like “Minari,” “Ad Astra,” “If Beale Street Could Talk,” and more. Coming up, Plan B has Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking,” Bong Joon-Ho’s “Mickey 17,” “The Nickel Boys” for MGM’s Orion Pictures, and MGM and director Cory Finley’s “Landscape With Invisible Hand,” which was just announced for a premiere at Sundance.

Plan B has also recently ramped up its television work, including working on Barry Jenkins’ “The Underground Railroad” and “Outer Range,” both for Amazon, as well as the non-scripted “Lego Masters” for FOX. The company is at work on a second season of Ryan Murphy’s “Feud” and “Three Body Problem,” from David Benioff, D.B. Weiss and Alex Woo, for Netflix. The company has both a film deal with MGM and a first-look TV deal with Amazon.

Pitt founded Plan B in 2001 alongside his manager Brad Grey, who passed away in 2015, and his ex-wife Jennifer Aniston. President Dede Gardner and co-president Jeremy Kleiner lead the company.

Mediawan is a French conglomerate that owns over 60 production labels, primarily across Europe, including banners such as Lagardère Studios and the French TV division of EuropaCorp. It’s known for shows like “Call My Agent” for FranceTV and Netflix but also the BBC and Amazon series “The English” with Emily Blunt. On the film side, Mediawan’s brands have backed “The Life Ahead” with Sophia Loren and “Novembre” with Jean Dujardin, as well as the upcoming “Django” for Canal+ and Sky, “One Day” for Netflix, and “The Three Musketeers for Pathé.

The company was co-founded by Pierre-Antoine Capton, Xavier Niel, and Matthieu Pigasse in 2015 and is supported by its founders and its strategic partners, including KKR and Atwater Capital, which is led by Vania Schlogel.

Moelis & Company served as lead financial advisor, Willkie Farr & Gallagher served as legal advisor, and CAA served as advisors to Plan B. Brillstein Entertainment served as advisor to Brad Pitt. Centerview Partners acted as financial advisors and Latham & Watkins acted as legal advisor to Mediawan. BNP Paribas served as advisor to the cofounders of Mediawan. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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Why Brad Pitt’s Plan B is looking to do audio as others pull out

Chris morrow is heading a new audio division at the production company, with goals to acquire ip with hollywood in mind..

By Amrita Khalid , one of the authors of audio industry newsletter Hot Pod. Khalid has covered tech, surveillance policy, consumer gadgets, and online communities for more than a decade.

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Hope everyone is gearing up for the dog days of summer. Today’s issue includes a Q&A I did with Chris Morrow, the newly hired head of audio at Plan B — the production company founded by Brad Pitt that has produced films like Women Talking , Blonde , The Big Short , and many others.

The now over 20-year-old Hollywood production powerhouse has undergone a few recent changes. Last year, Pitt sold 60 percent of Plan B to French media conglomerate Mediawan in a deal that is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions. The acquisition is a part of Mediawan’s strategy to expand to English-speaking markets and acquire more IP, of which audio is expected to play a role. Pitt is still involved in Plan B’s leadership, and Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner have continued as co-presidents of the production company.

In January, Plan B and Audible announced a multi-project development deal , where the former will create a series of Audible Originals. Morrow has worked in the audio industry for many years — he’s been an editor on a number of Gimlet Media shows, as well as the co-creator of its scripted series Mogul . Morrow shared with Hot Pod some insights on Hollywood’s evolving relationship with the audio world and what to expect from Plan B’s audio division in the months to follow. 

Also in today’s issue: I cover some news about SiriusXM’s plans to sunset Stitcher and New York Public Radio’s struggles to cut costs. 

Plan B thinks there’s still potential for audio in Hollywood

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Can you talk a little bit about what prompted Plan B to invest in the audio space? 

So, as you know, Plan B has entered into a really strong partnership with Audible. It’s an exclusive multi-product development deal to make Audible Originals. I think this coincided with Plan B’s acquisition by Mediawan. The goal was to expand the scope of what Plan B produces and to take that unique, kind of risky, out-of-the-box storytelling that you’ve seen them do in the film space for a lot of years and start to explore how to make similar things in audio. 

As far as “risky, out-of-the-box” storytelling in audio fiction, what does the current space look like? What potential is there for the medium to evolve? 

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the things that’s really exciting about Plan B is that a lot of people in this space are very focused on specific genres. My marching orders from the beginning have been to go out, find projects I’m passionate about, and just make them. I think as a content creator and a person who’s kind of ushering projects into this space, that’s the best thing you can hear. 

What seems to really move the needle at Plan B is passion around projects — as opposed to let’s go out and find rom coms or let’s go out and find a thriller or a true crime podcast . I think they’re open to all those possibilities, but what’s been their hallmark over the years is just really finding ways to support creators who have a particular vision and feel strongly about it. And even if it’s a little out of the box or seems a little different from what’s popular at the moment, they’ve shown that these projects, in the end, can be incredibly successful and impactful. 

Can you shed more light on what kind of projects and stories you’re planning on taking on? Will it be restricted to just audio dramas or scripted fiction podcasts? Is there interest in investing in other kinds of podcasts? 

I think there’s going to be a lot of movement in the near future. The first project is going to be a fiction project called A Summer Love Thing by a really amazing cinematographer named Bradford Young, who worked on Selma and When They See Us and a lot of other stuff. 

I think it’ll have a really unique approach in terms of the format and the storytelling, and I think it’ll fall very much in line with some of the other types of projects — maybe not in terms of subject matter, but at least in terms of approach and format that you’ve seen for Plan B. 

We’ve seen podcasts and audiobooks become a popular source of material or IP for Hollywood over the past several years. Since Plan B is a production company, how — or even does it — plan on playing a part in the kind of the audio-to-TV or audio-to-film pipeline?

Well, I think you just nailed it. The goal is to acquire a lot of really strong and innovative IP and find ways to use audio to help launch IP, and then ultimately find new life for it as scripted features or scripted documentaries. Plan B’s goal is to expand in all these areas over the coming years. 

I think Plan B sees this as a very fundamental part of what the business and the strategy is going to look like moving forward — which was very exciting for me to hear when we were initially talking about working together. 

The writers strike has put much of the production work in this town on hold. How has it impacted your work? Is there more interest in audio now, given the strike? 

I mean, obviously, the strike has affected the overall industry tremendously. Plan B as a company is respectful of that and supporting the whole process with that. For me, as head of audio, it hasn’t had quite the same impact. My focus, coming out of the gate, hasn’t been on TV or movies. Really, what I’m looking to do right now is kind of take advantage of the fact that there are a lot of super-talented audio people that are available right now and trying to find ways to build projects and collaborate with them. 

I think one of the — and I wouldn’t call this a mistake — but I think sometimes Hollywood doesn’t understand just how specific of a genre that audio is. I wouldn’t say that Hollywood thinks audio is easy to do, but it does think that if you’ve had success in other formats that you can easily plug in audio. As someone who’s been a creator in the space and has worn different hats, I really understand that there’s a unique skill set that [audio professionals] have developed. 

It’s been a rough year for the audio industry. We’ve seen several layoffs in the industry, ranging from companies like Spotify to major news publishers and other companies that invested heavily in audio during the pandemic. What are your thoughts about Plan B getting into audio during a time when many companies are moving away from it? 

Well, I think it’s a bold move. In talking with Jeremy Kleiner and Dede Gardner, who run Plan B, they see there’s a ton of opportunity [in audio] right now. They see this as a moment where you can make a lot of projects that people are shying away from. You can acquire IP that otherwise might not be available. 

I don’t want to be lighthearted about it because I know, on a very personal level, this downturn has impacted a lot of talented people who have lost their jobs or seen their work slow down. But I think that Plan B, because of the Mediawan acquisition, is in a really special place where we can keep going at a moment where a lot of people are pulling back significantly. 

SiriusXM is shutting down Stitcher in August to pave the way for new flagship app

SiriusXM is bidding adieu to the podcast app Stitcher on August 29th, with the goal of moving current users over to its much-hyped, updated SXM app — which will roll out this fall. The news arrived via an internal memo, which was first reported by Bloomberg and also seen by Hot Pod . SiriusXM acquired the popular podcast app in 2020, along with the podcast network Earwolf and Midroll Media. 

While Stitcher’s user base is smaller than that of the SXM app — it’s still nothing to sneeze at. According to app analytics firm data.ai , the Stitcher app has been downloaded approximately 14 million times across both the App Store and Google Play stores, while the SiriusXM app has been downloaded about 55 million times.

“The scale and reach of our widely-distributed podcasts has been and remains a crucial accelerant for our advertising sales business while incorporating podcasts more holistically into our flagship SiriusXM subscription service will help to drive further growth. As a result, we have made the decision to sunset our standalone podcast listening app as we increase our focus on these priorities,” noted the memo’s authors, SiriusXM’s chief product and tech officer Joe Inzerillo, its chief ad revenue officer John Trimble, and SiriusXM Radio’s chief content officer Scott Greenstein. 

The biggest change that devoted Stitcher fans will notice in the SXM app is that there’s no way to escape ads — Stitcher’s premium plan included ad-free podcasts. But even those who pay for the SXM app’s $11 per month platinum tier (of which current Stitcher premium members will receive a free six-month trial) will have to listen to ads. SiriusXM isn’t the only platform that’s gotten rid of ad-free podcast ads. Spotify Premium members can listen to ad-free music but still have to listen to dynamically inserted podcast ads and host-read ads. It seems that during a time when podcasts are struggling to monetize, the added revenue from ads is hard to give up. 

SiriusXM also owns the ad tech platform AdsWizz and has a unified ad sales group known as SXM Media that sells ads across Pandora, SiriusXM, and Stitcher. The ad network exclusively for podcast ads, known as the SiriusXM Podcast Network , will serve the new flagship SXM app. 

SiriusXM’s decision to sunset Stitcher seems like a win-win situation for both parts of the business. As The Hollywood Reporter noted , Stitcher’s existing team will remain, and no shows have been canceled. Stitcher’s programming will also be exposed to a much larger audience. For SiriusXM, keeping all of its podcast programming on its flagship app means one fewer platform to support — and more resources to put behind this upcoming relaunch.

NYPR eliminates senior leadership bonuses and suspends intern program

New York Public Radio has had a rough year, and the public media giant is taking extreme steps to cut costs as it deals with an $8 million deficit for the fiscal year that ends this week. According to an internal NYPR memo shared by Skye Pillsbury, senior leadership at NYPR won’t receive bonuses, as is customary at the end of a fiscal year. The company’s summer intern class will be its last for the foreseeable future — it’s suspending its intern program for the time being. 

But a few more tough decisions are coming down the pike. NYPR — along with its board —  plans on undergoing a “financial planning process” this summer that will no doubt lead to more cost cutting measures in the fall. NYPR, to date, has already frozen hiring, cut down on overtime, suspended work travel, and a number of other steps to cut down on expenses.

Unfortunately, the savings won’t be enough for NYPR to weather the storm. “But to be clear, on their own, they aren’t enough to stave off wider implications of the deficit,” wrote NYPR CEO LaFontaine Oliver in the memo. 

/ News and analysis on the biggest events in audio. Subscribe to Hot Pod Insider for full access and three editions each week.

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Brad Pitt’s Plan B, Mediawan Closes Deal for Majority Stake Sale (UPDATED)

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UPDATED — Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment has closed a deal sell a majority stake to Mediawan , the pan-European media conglomerate.

The parties issued a press release confirming they had entered into a “definite agreement” for Mediawan to buy a “significant stake” in Plan B. Under the pact, which values the company over $300 million, Plan B is also taking a stake in Mediawan.

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Plan B  Entertainment, which is run by  Brad Pitt  and Dede Gardner, hired Moelis & Co. to shop for a buyer or potential investors in October. The banner was founded in 2001 by Pitt and Jennifer Aniston shortly after the pair married. Pitt eventually took over the banner after the two divorced in 2005. Its credits include “The Departed,” “Moonlight” and “12 Years a Slave,” all of which won the Oscar for best picture. The company recently produced “She Said,” a look at the journalists who broke the Harvey Weinstein story, as well as “Blonde,” an off-beat drama about Marilyn Monroe.

Mediawan was founded in 2015 by Pierre-Antoine Capton , telecom billionaire Xavier Niel and Matthieu Pigasse. The company, which is financially backed by New York-based private equity firm KKR, has been ramping up its presence within the competitive English-language market through the acquisition (with Leonine Studios) of Drama Republic in the U.K. and recently announced a joint venture with “The Son” filmmaker Florian Zeller and former CAA executive Federica Sainte-Rose to launch an L.A.-based production vehicle called Blue Morning Pictures. As part of the alliance with Plan B, Mediawan will be creating a dedicated U.S. entity called Mediawan US to develop and coordinate all American projects.

“This partnership will allow us to create a unique artistic link between Europe and the United States through which we and Plan B will develop premium independent content, providing a global platform on which the world’s greatest talent can continue to thrive,” said Pierre-Antoine Capton, CEO and Co-Founder of Mediawan. “We would like to thank Brad, Dede, and Jeremy for their trust and recognition of the world-class content emanating from our work in Europe,” Capton continued.

Plan B partners Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner, described Mediawan as an “innovative, artistic and producer-centric platform.” With Mediawan onboard, Plan B will “open a window to an even greater number of storytellers, both established masters and the emerging voices that have always excited us,” said Plan B partners.

“As we enter the next chapter in our evolution, we are excited at the possibilities this partnership affords as we maximize our reach toward an increasingly global audience with a broad range of films and television series across all platforms, genres, and mediums,” the trio continued. “For our current partner studios, along with those we look forward to working with in the future, we pledge to continue producing new content for audiences everywhere,” they added.

Mediawan already boasts a strong footprint in Europe with stakes in some of France’s most successful production banners, including Dimitri Rassam’s Chapter 2 (“The Three Musketeers”), Hugo Selignac’s Chi-Fou-Mi (“November”), ON Kids & Family (“Miraculous), Mon Voisin Production (“Call My Agent!”), and Italy’s Palomar (“The Name of the Rose”).

CNBC was first to report that a deal was imminent.

VIP+ Analysis: Inside Hollywood’s Content Fire Sale

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Why Brad Pitt’s Plan B Is Looking for Buyers – and Who Will Ultimately Snatch It Up | PRO Insight

Reese Witherspoon sold her Hello Sunshine production studio last year to Kevin Mayer’s private equity-backed media firm Candle Media for a cool $900 million (Mayer just took center stage at TheWrap’s annual TheGrill event last week). And now it looks like Brad Pitt wants to join Reese’s party and toast her at the M&A cocktail bar.

As reported last week, Plan B has engaged investment bank Moelis & Co. to shop Pitt’s company to potential rabid buyers in yet another sign that the media and entertainment M&A market is heating up. (Read my article from last week where I dive deep into Hollywood’s inevitable mega-M&A with Big Tech.)

But Plan B and Hello Sunshine-style M&A — opportunities to acquire prestige production companies — aren’t driven by today’s brutal “down market” economic forces and low valuations. Rather, the price tags for a piece of Pitt, Witherspoon and others of that prestige ilk are driven by scarcity and the streaming video market’s insatiable need for compelling, differentiated (and hopefully game-changing) content. And that means that Plan B — the company behind Oscar winners “12 Years a Slave” and “Moonlight,” among many other esteemed titles — undoubtedly will fetch top dollar, rather than the kind of distressed selling that potentially awaits some major publicly traded media companies battered by Wall Street (which was the focus of my column last week for TheWrap).

Also Read: Why Hollywood Dealmakers Aren’t Worried About the Content Boom Slowing – Even if the Economy Does (Video)

We consumers voraciously consume content. If nothing else, we have demonstrated that in both good times and in bad we take comfort — and eek out our thrills — by sitting on our couches with remote in hand. But we now have seemingly endless choices to meet our “we want it now!” streaming needs. For that reason, it’s been a hyper-competitive streaming market for quite some time. As if that weren’t enough, now things are even more challenged for all major contenders. Let’s face it, all of our pocketbooks (even Brad’s… OK, maybe not Brad’s) continue to be squeezed by turbulent economic times. And that means we must make budgeting choices. Do we really need three or four streaming services, especially when most streamers continue to raise their monthly subscription fees?

Increasingly, the answer is “no” which, of course, puts even more pressure on all streamers in this existential clash of the video titans. This reality causes all of them, even seemingly invincible Apple, to now countenance something that was previously unthinkable — i.e., the dreaded “A” word (“AVOD,” that is, advertising video on demand). And content, content, content — exclusive “Must See TV” content — essentially remains the sole differentiating strategy for customer acquisition and retention for all streaming flavors, SVOD and AVOD. No one has cracked any other code yet.

And that brings us back to Pitt’s “Plan A” — his new M&A Plan B. Pitt and Plan B are prestige names that all major streamers understand and covet. Most of them likely believe that Plan B will continue to produce highly marketable marquee content that draws consumers in — and then keeps them there. To flip the script on that old adage in financial investing, buyers hope that Plan B’s past performance does guarantee future success.

Also Read: Why NFTs Aren’t Dead – and How the Right Ones Will Transform Entertainment | PRO Insight

To be clear, a deal to buy Pitt’s Plan B goes well beyond earlier exclusive, but limited term, streaming-driven mega-producer deals like Netflix’s latest $150 million five year extension with Shonda Rhimes and earlier $300 million deal with Ryan Murphy. A buyout of Plan B is an acquisition of the company itself, including its intellectual property (content), and not just the personality (Pitt). It’s a marriage that hopefully lasts a lifetime, not just a multi-year tryst.

In my mega media M&A article last week, I predicted other “A list” boutique production companies that are ripe for the picking for the same reasons. And, just like Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine (and also as a virtual certainty for Pitt’s Plan B), none of these will go cheap. Prestige studio/distributor A24 falls into this hallowed category of A-list targets. Private equity firms Stripes and Eldridge own a significant chunk, and private equity’s ultimate goal is to sell at massively inflated prices typically within about five years. That will happen here.

Anonymous Content is another likely target. It’s a bit more complex here, because Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective owns a significant stake, and she certainly is in no need to sell. But make no mistake, Emerson Collective is a “for profit” company that also exists to achieve powerful financial results. Prices certainly won’t be low here either. But content is more king than ever, and that reality will only deepen over time. That means that today’s “overspending” may be tomorrow’s content bargains. Remember Disney’s $4 billion mega-buy of Marvel Entertainment back in 2009? That don’t look so bad right now, does it?

Also Read: Make No Mistake, Content Spending Isn’t Going Down Anytime Soon | PRO Insight

And just in time for Halloween — and in this “tricky” environment in which content franchises are the new oil — Blumhouse is an obvious “treat.” Blumhouse is a rare entertainment brand that screams quality to its coveted young audience, and it boasts multiple horror franchises that can be (and have been) cost-effectively re-imagined time and time again (to great success and high returns time and time again). Horror sells, so Blumhouse is an obvious market buy. That is, unless Comcast NBCUniversal buys it outright since it’s already engaged in an exclusive first-look deal. The conglomerate is the most obvious buyer if (and this is a big “if”) it holds onto its NBCUniversal media business. That’s not a sure bet, since Comcast’s sexy media business drives significantly lower margins than its lucrative, ever-growing and very unsexy broadband business. Why? Because content is expensive of course. Peacock rival Netflix (well, is Peacock really a rival?) spends roughly $17 billion for content annually.

That brings us back to the central role played by content. Expensive content. So who are the likely buyers for Pitt’s Plan B? With their trillion dollar plus valuations, any one of the mega “Big Tech” streamers could make this move without even blinking (although the antitrust police likely will have their own “say”) . And some ultimately may go shopping, just like Amazon did for storied boutique franchise-laden studio MGM.

But my bet for Plan B is that it will end up with a similar fate to Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine. Private equity. Even now in this massively down market, private equity is flush with cash. And private equity’s mission is to spend, not hold onto it. That’s great news for Pitt and all the other marquee production companies and boutique studios, since Candle Media certainly isn’t the only game in town. Multiple buyers will go door to door trick-or-treating for all of them. It’s the irresistible candy they seek. And all of that demand means lofty numbers are to be expected. There’s only one Brad Pitt after all.

For those of you interested in learning more, visit Peter’s firm Creative Media at creativemedia.biz and follow him on Twitter @pcsathy .

Also Read: TheGrill 2022 Speaker Portrait Gallery – Steven Levitan, Sera Gamble and More (Exclusive Photos)

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Why Brad Pitt’s Plan B Is Looking for Buyers – and Who Will Ultimately Snatch It Up | PRO Insight

The prestige production company isn’t a great buy just because the actor is behind it, it happens to make great content too (and the actor’s behind it)

Reese Witherspoon sold her Hello Sunshine production studio last year to Kevin Mayer’s private equity-backed media firm Candle Media for a cool $900 million (Mayer just took center stage at TheWrap’s annual TheGrill event last week). And now it looks like Brad Pitt wants to join Reese’s party and toast her at the M&A cocktail bar.

As reported last week, Plan B has engaged investment bank Moelis & Co. to shop Pitt’s company to potential rabid buyers in yet another sign that the media and entertainment M&A market is heating up. (Read my article from last week where I dive deep into Hollywood’s inevitable mega-M&A with Big Tech.) 

But Plan B and Hello Sunshine-style M&A — opportunities to acquire prestige production companies — aren’t driven by today’s brutal “down market” economic forces and low valuations. Rather, the price tags for a piece of Pitt, Witherspoon and others of that prestige ilk are driven by scarcity and the streaming video market’s insatiable need for compelling, differentiated (and hopefully game-changing) content. And that means that Plan B — the company behind Oscar winners “12 Years a Slave” and “Moonlight,” among many other esteemed titles — undoubtedly will fetch top dollar, rather than the kind of distressed selling that potentially awaits some major publicly traded media companies battered by Wall Street (which was the focus of my column last week for TheWrap). 

We consumers voraciously consume content. If nothing else, we have demonstrated that in both good times and in bad we take comfort — and eek out our thrills — by sitting on our couches with remote in hand. But we now have seemingly endless choices to meet our “we want it now!” streaming needs. For that reason, it’s been a hyper-competitive streaming market for quite some time. As if that weren’t enough, now things are even more challenged for all major contenders. Let’s face it, all of our pocketbooks (even Brad’s… OK, maybe not Brad’s) continue to be squeezed by turbulent economic times. And that means we must make budgeting choices. Do we really need three or four streaming services, especially when most streamers continue to raise their monthly subscription fees? 

Increasingly, the answer is “no” which, of course, puts even more pressure on all streamers in this existential clash of the video titans. This reality causes all of them, even seemingly invincible Apple, to now countenance something that was previously unthinkable — i.e., the dreaded “A” word (“AVOD,” that is, advertising video on demand). And content, content, content — exclusive “Must See TV” content — essentially remains the sole differentiating strategy for customer acquisition and retention for all streaming flavors, SVOD and AVOD. No one has cracked any other code yet. 

And that brings us back to Pitt’s “Plan A” — his new M&A Plan B. Pitt and Plan B are prestige names that all major streamers understand and covet. Most of them likely believe that Plan B will continue to produce highly marketable marquee content that draws consumers in — and then keeps them there. To flip the script on that old adage in financial investing, buyers hope that Plan B’s past performance does guarantee future success. 

To be clear, a deal to buy Pitt’s Plan B goes well beyond earlier exclusive, but limited term, streaming-driven mega-producer deals like Netflix’s latest $150 million five year extension with Shonda Rhimes and earlier $300 million deal with Ryan Murphy. A buyout of Plan B is an acquisition of the company itself, including its intellectual property (content), and not just the personality (Pitt). It’s a marriage that hopefully lasts a lifetime, not just a multi-year tryst.

In my mega media M&A article last week, I predicted other “A list” boutique production companies that are ripe for the picking for the same reasons. And, just like Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine (and also as a virtual certainty for Pitt’s Plan B), none of these will go cheap. Prestige studio/distributor A24 falls into this hallowed category of A-list targets. Private equity firms Stripes and Eldridge own a significant chunk, and private equity’s ultimate goal is to sell at massively inflated prices typically within about five years. That will happen here.

Anonymous Content is another likely target. It’s a bit more complex here, because Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective owns a significant stake, and she certainly is in no need to sell. But make no mistake, Emerson Collective is a “for profit” company that also exists to achieve powerful financial results. Prices certainly won’t be low here either. But content is more king than ever, and that reality will only deepen over time. That means that today’s “overspending” may be tomorrow’s content bargains. Remember Disney’s $4 billion mega-buy of Marvel Entertainment back in 2009? That don’t look so bad right now, does it?

And just in time for Halloween — and in this “tricky” environment in which content franchises are the new oil — Blumhouse is an obvious “treat.” Blumhouse is a rare entertainment brand that screams quality to its coveted young audience, and it boasts multiple horror franchises that can be (and have been) cost-effectively re-imagined time and time again (to great success and high returns time and time again). Horror sells, so Blumhouse is an obvious market buy. That is, unless Comcast NBCUniversal buys it outright since it’s already engaged in an exclusive first-look deal. The conglomerate is the most obvious buyer if (and this is a big “if”) it holds onto its NBCUniversal media business. That’s not a sure bet, since Comcast’s sexy media business drives significantly lower margins than its lucrative, ever-growing and very unsexy broadband business. Why? Because content is expensive of course. Peacock rival Netflix (well, is Peacock really a rival?) spends roughly $17 billion for content annually.

That brings us back to the central role played by content. Expensive content. So who are the likely buyers for Pitt’s Plan B? With their trillion dollar plus valuations, any one of the mega “Big Tech” streamers could make this move without even blinking (although the antitrust police likely will have their own “say”) . And some ultimately may go shopping, just like Amazon did for storied boutique franchise-laden studio MGM. 

But my bet for Plan B is that it will end up with a similar fate to Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine. Private equity. Even now in this massively down market, private equity is flush with cash. And private equity’s mission is to spend, not hold onto it. That’s great news for Pitt and all the other marquee production companies and boutique studios, since Candle Media certainly isn’t the only game in town. Multiple buyers will go door to door trick-or-treating for all of them. It’s the irresistible candy they seek. And all of that demand means lofty numbers are to be expected. There’s only one Brad Pitt after all.

For those of you interested in learning more, visit Peter’s firm Creative Media at creativemedia.biz and follow him on Twitter @pcsathy .

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Plan B, the Oscar-winning producer of 12 Years a Slave, The Departed and Moonlight and current awards-season movies Blonde and She Said is exploring deals with potential investors, including an outright sale.

Deadline has confirmed that global independent investment bank Moelis & Co. was hired by Plan B six months ago to shop for possible investors. We’ve heard that Plan B received numerous offers, but it’s all exploratory.

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Plan B has been behind several notable movies including Ad Astra, Vice, The Big Short, World War Z and If Beale Street Could Talk.

On the TV side, the company won an Emmy for HBO’s limited series  The Normal Heart  and landed nominations for  Feud: Bette and Joan , documentary Big Men and TV movie Nightingale .

Several boutique production companies have nabbed big investors of late, i.e. Kevin Mayer and Tom Stagss’ Candle Media, which picked up Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine for $100 million shy of $ 1 billion, A24 getting a $225 million investment with Stripes as the led investor. Parasite Oscar winner NEON recently tapped Merchant Bank Raine in exploring a possible sale.

Wall Street Journal first reported the news.

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Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment just became the latest production company affiliated with a big star to find a buyer

Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment, the production company behind films like  The Big Short , agreed to sell a “significant” stake to Mediawan SA, the French media conglomerate behind the hit series  Call My Agent .

Mediawan is financing the deal through a capital increase with investments from shareholders including KKR , Atwater Capital and Societe Generale SA, the company said in a statement Saturday. Pitt and his Plan B partners Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner will also become holders of Mediawan after the transaction. It values Plan B at more than €300 million, according to a person familiar with the deal.

Investors have been looking to put money into independent production companies to take advantage of the growing demand for original programming. Companies affiliated with a big star like Pitt have proved especially desirable. 

Last year, Reese Witherspoon sold a majority stake in her Hello Sunshine operation to a Blackstone-backed media venture led by Walt Disney Co. veterans in a deal that valued the business at $900 million. A production company created by LeBron James was valued at $725 million in the sale of a minority stake to RedBird Capital Partners, Nike Inc. and Epic Games Inc.

Mediawan’s Plan B investment will be made through a new entity, Mediawan US, which will coordinate the firm’s development in the country. 

Global audience

Founded in 2015 as a SPAC by French TV producer Pierre-Antoine Capton, telecom billionaire Xavier Niel and Centerview Partners banker Matthieu Pigasse, Mediawan’s businesses range from TV to cinema production and content distribution. The deal with Plan B allows the firm to expand beyond its core European market.

“As we enter the next chapter in our evolution, we are excited at the possibilities this partnership affords as we maximize our reach toward an increasingly global audience with a broad range of films and television series across all platforms, genres, and mediums,” Pitt, Gardner and Kleiner said in the statement.

Pitt founded Plan B in 2001 alongside his then wife Jennifer Aniston and manager Brad Grey. The company has carved out a niche as a producer of award-winning films and has a deal to make TV shows for Amazon .com Inc.

Mediawan US’s board will be chaired by Atwater Capital’s founder and managing partner Vania Schlogel, while Mediawan’s co-founder Capton will act as CEO.

Talks between Mediawan and Plan B were previously  reported  by Bloomberg News. The Financial Times reported the deal earlier Saturday.

–With assistance from Benoit Berthelot.

Our new weekly Impact Report newsletter examines how ESG news and trends are shaping the roles and responsibilities of today's executives. Subscribe here .

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Newlyweds Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt buy luxury yacht for 250 million pounds

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have reportedly spent 250 million pounds on a luxury yacht. They plan to spend a further 2,00,000 pounds to have the luxury vessel fitted to their own specifications.

Los Angeles: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have reportedly spent 250 million pounds on a luxury yacht.

They plan to spend a further 2,00,000 pounds to have the luxury vessel fitted to their own specifications.

The floating palace will be decked out with the finest Italian marble and woodwork by Italian boat-makers Rizzardi. It will even feature technology that can interfere with digital cameras to fend off paparazzi, reports mirror.co.uk .

Meanwhile, Brad, 50, and ­Angelina, 39, are in Malta shooting a film together after marrying in a secret ceremony in France last month.

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