ViacomCBS completes acquisition of 49% stake in MIRAMAX from beIN Media Group
ViacomCBS and MIRAMAX
While most of us are getting used to the new version of business-as-usual, living with stay-at-home orders due to the spread of COVID-19, some businesses, including ViacomCBS are getting on with, well, business as usual.
Last week, ViacomCBS and the Qatar-based beIN Media Group completed the sale of a 49% stake in MIRAMAX, the production company created and formerly owned by Bob and Harvey Weinstein and sold to Disney in the early 1990s. The deal was worth $375 million, and the companies said that the current leadership, headquartered in Los Angeles, will continue in their existing roles.
MIRAMAX is the home of four Best Picture Academy Awards, for Chicago, Shakespeare in Love, The English Patient and No Country for Old Men. They’re also the studio behind Pulp Fiction, Clerks, Scream, and Strictly Ballroom: a diverse portfolio with broad appeal. ViacomCBS’s deal will see them gain distribution rights and the opportunity to create new projects based on MIRAMAX’s existing properties.
The sale is potentially a crucial one for ViacomCBS, which was already facing investor backlash from its 2019 merger, before the effects of coronavirus hit Hollywood in March. Between December, when CBS and Viacom joined forces, and the end of February, the combined company had already lost about $12 billion (or about 40%) of its market value, despite promising performances from CBS All Access, including record sign-ups in January due to the premiere of Star Trek: Picard. Now, the addition of the MIRAMAX back catalogue could prove strategic for ViacomCBS as current productions have all but stopped and streaming services increasingly vie for share in a rapidly-growing streaming video on demand market.
It’s not clear yet what ViacomCBS’s plans are for the newly-acquired content, and in the midst of the current crisis, how quickly they would be able to move distribution. But for now, the closing of the MIRAMAX deal is a potentially exciting one for ViacomCBS and is a good sign that the company is still open for business.
