Thomas Dey and Simon Cowell
Simon Cowell’s production company Syco Entertainment has raised US$125 million to create an acquisition fund intended to expand its international reach. The company said it will use the investment to expand through “a mixture of strategically aligned acquisitions and organic growth.”
The deal was achieved by the securitization of the intellectual property of the “Got Talent” franchise, according to ACF, the global media and entertainment investment bank which advised on the deal. The “Got Talent” franchise includes “America's Got Talent” and “Britain's Got Talent” formats, which have been commissioned in 72 territories worldwide.
ACF advised Syco throughout the investment deal working with their team in both the United Kingdom and United States over a two-year period. The deal is the first of its kind as it includes securitization of various aspects of the “Got Talent” intellectual property, which comprise production margins and fees, digital income, franchise and original content sales, and sponsorship income. ACF’s innovative approach used a structure for the “Got Talent” format more commonly applied to the music-industry’s royalty income streams. ACF was the lead bank and advised Syco Entertainment in both the United Kingdom and United States. Memery Crystal, a multidisciplinary international law firm based, advised Simon Cowell’s Syco Entertainment.
“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 maximize 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,” commented Thomas Dey, Founder and CEO of ACF.
“ACF’s certainly got talent. Their team, led by the ever-tenacious Thomas Dey, delivered on their promises and introduced the perfect partners to achieve our goals,” declared Ian Rosenblatt OBE, Director of Syco Entertainment.